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Chapter Text

The wind seemed to come from every direction, battering the inn with relentless fury, its ghostly howl penetrating through the thick blocks of ice and woolly hides hung on the wall. It was warm inside, at least, filled with carefully kindled firelight and the heat of bodies covered in thick coats, their features barely visible through the layers of fabric covering every possible inch of exposed skin.

The Tiger Seal was the very last outpost of the South Pole, and as such it collected all manner of oddballs and outcasts. Some stopped there to refuel and rest before they took off into the great unknown; others lived there permanently, having sought a home away from home and finding one at the very end of the whole world. The inn was still run by the same Water Tribe families who had first founded it over a hundred years before; even as the Fire Nation had raided village after village, the Tiger Seal had remained, steadfast and sturdy, offering a bed and a meal to anyone who came through its doors. The staff took pride in their heritage, uniquely able to flaunt their traditions without fear of repercussion, and were more than eager to tell old Water Tribe stories to anyone with ears, no matter how disinterested they might be. The inn buzzed and hummed with conversation, a hive of human activity bracing against the unrelenting cold.

The traveler was perched at the bar, gloved hand wrapped around a glass of something warm and alcoholic, when he heard the bartender say three words that made him go cold all over again.

“So then she ran, y’see? The last waterbender. And no one’s seen her since.”

The last waterbender.

The traveler knew better than to react; he’d been trained to remain stoic even in the most horrifying of circumstances, and a few gossipy nobodies at a remote pub wouldn’t faze him. That said, his father used to say that more information was always better before a battle, so he perked up an ear and tried to eavesdrop around the fur trim of his hood.

“That’s incredible,” the tourist said. “Where did she go?” The excitement and curiosity in her voice was thick like treacle, and the traveler rolled his eyes and took another sip of his drink.

“Down to the pole proper, where no one can survive,” the bartender replied. “She’s got a whole fortress she made there. No one can find it, and no one who enters it lives to tell the tale.”

“That’s nonsense,” another patron slurred, far too loudly. “If no one’s lived, how’n—how d’you know where she is?”

The bartender shrugged. “That’s just what my ma told me,” he said. “She used to say that the waterbender was the heart of the whole Water Tribe, and she was tasked with keeping all our old treasures safe until the war was over.”

“No,” the drunk patron cut in again, “it’s that her heart is made of gold. Anyone who can take it from her will be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams.”

I bet that’s a lie, the traveler thought to himself, and couldn’t help but smirk. I’ll bet her heart is just as much flesh and blood as mine. But no matter how many worthless trinkets she hoards, these idiots are right about one thing: her heart is priceless, and when I take it from her I will be rewarded indeed.

“That’s ridiculous,” someone else shot back. “How could a woman’s heart be made out of gold?”

“I don’t know!” the drunkard replied. “She’s a witch, ain’t she? It could happen.”

“Waterbending isn’t witchcraft,” the bartender said, refilling the traveler’s cup as he passed by. “She’s a human, just the same as you or me. Probably over a hundred years old by now.”

This was all getting just a bit too chummy for the traveler, and he downed his drink in one go and tossed a few silver pieces onto the bar, thinking already of his bed upstairs—the last chance for any real comfort for a very long while. But as he went to slide off his stool, a new voice cut through the din of the room, and this one made him stop in his tracks.

“You’re all fools,” it said, and the traveler turned to see an old crone of a woman standing there, her eyes quick and sharp. “The waterbender isn’t some children’s adventure story. She possesses all of the knowledge and power of our once-great tribe; she’s the strongest bender that’s ever been born. Do you know how many of you I’ve seen pass through this inn? Heads full of empty dreams of fame and fortune, so distracted by the promise of riches that you don’t even realize you’re walking into a trap until it’s too late. The waterbender has powers the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades; those who knew exactly what she was capable of have all died off by now. You look around and see our traditions and ways, and you think we’re some kind of primitive culture that hasn’t known glory. But waterbending isn’t fancy tricks; it’s more dangerous and incredible than you could ever imagine.”

The drunkard laughed—a short burst of denial. But the old woman paid him no mind; her gaze was squarely on the traveler, and he stared at the floor to avoid meeting her eyes.

“If I were smart,” she said, “I would abandon any notions of trying to find the waterbender, no matter your reasons. Because you won’t find her; you’ll die in the snow first, and no one will know to mourn you. But even if you do? The waterbender will see right through you. She’ll know every transgression, every sin, every scar. And her judgement will be swift and merciless.”

The traveler kept still, even as his heart pounded against his chest, and the woman’s words sank in.

Her judgement will be swift and merciless.

He shook his head of the thought. That wasn’t enough to stop him; he would simply need to be more swift, more merciless. He had plenty of experience with that.

With his bill paid, the traveler climbed up to his room, shut the door, and finally pulled off his hood. A polished piece of glass was hung over the washbasin, and he caught a glimpse of his reflection and stopped.

The months of travel were beginning to wear on him already; he had lost weight, and the angles of his face seemed particularly harsh in the cool light of the moon outside. He glowered almost by force of habit, but his heart wasn’t in it; as his expression fell, he swore he could see a flicker of the young boy he once was—handsome and full of promise, too emotional for his own good and too soft to survive.

That was why he was here, at the very end of the world, in the coldest place imaginable, and about to be a whole lot colder. That was why he had traveled for so long, from ship to ship and port to port, first with an entourage and then with just a small staff and then eventually alone. Everyone around him always seemed happy to leave, and he really couldn’t blame them; there was no honour in serving a monster, no glory to be found in following the orders of an embarrassment like him. It was just as well, then; the South Pole was a lonely place, and his quest fell on him and him alone. It seemed only right that the last part of his journey would be the hardest, but he was so close. Just a few more miles, just a few more nights, just a single horrifying task to accomplish, and then he could finally go home again.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. The tallest order imaginable, and yet he would do it. He would do anything, if it meant restoring his honour and setting things back to the way they used to be.

The old woman’s warning echoed back to him: The waterbender will see right through you. Her judgement will be swift and merciless.

Without thinking, the traveler reached his bare hand up to the left side of his face, trembling fingertips tracing the sickeningly familiar ridges of the burn that flamed across his eye and down his cheek.

Every transgression. Every sin. Every scar.

Chapter Text

The very bottom of the world was a place that defied expectation and explanation. At least that’s how it seemed to Prince Zuko, as he exhaled a puff of heated air that quickly dissipated into the whirling snow around him.

He had been traveling for a week, though he was starting to doubt his own ability to tell time. Leaving the Tiger Seal had seemed so easy; no one had tried to stop him, even as he began walking directly due south. In those first moments of marching, his pack strapped to his back, Zuko thought that maybe this wouldn’t be too difficult after all; now, as the snow hit his exposed skin like tiny pinpricks, he found himself reconsidering just how dangerous the weather was, and contemplating with dread how much worse it might become. He was no fool; he knew the South Pole would be cold. He had traveled all over the world, in the first years of his banishment, and had experienced the biting pain of a blizzard before. But he didn’t ever imagine it would be like this.

Perhaps the staff of the Tiger Seal had become used to the determination of such travelers, whose ambitions outstripped their sense of self-preservation; if they’d made it all the way to the inn, then they weren’t going to turn back because of a few severe weather warnings from the locals. Perhaps they did warn most people—people who could smile, whose faces weren’t difficult to look at, whose failure didn’t cling to them like a stench that could never be washed off. Perhaps they knew exactly who Zuko was, and thought it was better that he die down here, alone in the snow—one less Fire Nation monster to hunt them and theirs. Zuko wouldn’t be surprised.

The snow around him was blinding, the horizon line all but obliterated. Nothing but blank whiteness for as far as the eye could see, and nothing to keep Zuko distracted and prevent his mind from wandering. The cold had numbed his body, dulling the pain in his shins that came from traipsing through the snow banks, but the agony of the mind remained sharp and cruel, no matter where he was.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. His father’s order echoed in his head, whispering over the howl of the wind. At the time, those eight words had seemed like a benediction, a peace offering, a final trail on the map that could guide Zuko back home. He had wandered the earth for six years after his banishment; he was the Exiled Prince, unwelcome wherever he went. He had held out as long as he could, determined to keep his head high and his pride intact—what was left of it, anyway—before he had come crawling back to Caldera, head bowed low, begging for some way he could be redeemed.

It wasn’t the jeers of the peasants that did him in, in the end. It wasn’t the news that his uncle Iroh, perhaps the last man who had shown Zuko kindness, had taken ill. It wasn’t even the rumours that his sister Azula was being groomed for succession. Zuko had just become too homesick to be afraid anymore.

It was humiliating. Every moment of his return had been torture; sneaking through the city like a common thief, the silence in the palace hallways, his sister’s high-pitched giggle heard behind a door as he passed. Zuko had half-expected his father to just kill him on sight; that was the standard punishment for those who broke their exile and returned to the Fire Nation. But Ozai had spared his son the flames this time; as Zuko prostrated himself, his forehead hovering less than an inch from the smooth marble floor of the throne room, the Fire Lord had instead simply waited. Seconds had crawled by in agonizing slow motion, and Zuko never moved a muscle, even as he braced himself to hear the whoosh of fire and feel the heat bearing down on him, searing his flesh, making countless nightmares a reality.

Ozai had made him wait for over fifteen minutes before he finally said those eight words: bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

By the time Zuko raised his eyes to the throne, his father was already gone. He had slipped away from the palace just as quietly as he’d entered, his hooded robes pulled up over his face, had told no one of his new quest. He had boarded a ship bound for the southern tip of the Earth Kingdom, and from there had hopped from vessel to vessel until he’d made his way to the pole, utterly alone. Being exiled was bad enough; to have come back, begging for mercy? That was a whole new level of dishonour, a whole new dark void of self-loathing that could rot and fester in his mind with each passing day.

He stopped his trek for a moment, his upper lip curling reflexively as a wave of shame washed over him. The waterbender will see right through you, the old woman had said. There would be more than plenty for her to see in Zuko; it wasn’t a question of whether or not she would find him unworthy, but rather just how many of his transgressions she would drag up as proof before—

He closed his eyes. I won’t let her get that close.

There were no other options. There would be no substitute. He would accept nothing less. Crown Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation would return triumphant and take his rightful place by his father’s side, and this whole horrible ordeal could just be forgotten.

But Agni , it was cold. Zuko clenched his jaw, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

The snow came up to his mid-thigh by now, turning each step into an ordeal of quick capture and agonizingly slow release, over and over again. He had packed light, but not light enough; he’d already discarded several less-than-crucial items and was starting to wonder which of the crucial ones he could do without. He had placed them down on the trail, in a vain attempt to mark himself a path home, but when Zuko looked back, all he could see was a blanket of pure white snow, his footsteps disappearing before his very eyes.

He’d stopped to make camp only three times, when the exhaustion had become profound enough that he couldn’t drag himself even one step further. Zuko wasn’t entirely naive; he had consulted experts, learned how to survive in the winter like this. How to dig himself a burrow in the snow, how to insulate himself as much as possible, how to keep his compass in hand at all times lest he lose his way and go in endless circles.

In theory, that was all well and good. In practice, Zuko had to admit that things were not going quite as smoothly as planned. As he got further to the bottom of the world, the compass seemed to go haywire more and more. He knew that the sun in the South Pole was going to be weaker than he was used to, but as Zuko trekked south, the light had dimmed, until it disappeared completely. It hadn't risen in days, or at least that's what it felt like. The winds got worse with every passing hour, faster and colder than he thought imaginable. Zuko, who had trouble seeing out of his left eye at the best of times, had completely surrendered all hope of actually being able to watch where he was going, and he grumbled muttered curses into the scarf that covered his mouth and nose from the cold.

“Cold” was an understatement. Cold was a four-letter word. Cold was meaningless, undefined, beyond and without limits. Zuko was the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, born in the capital city of Caldera, damn it; he had been raised in the sun, as was his birthright. He was a firebender; he drew power and energy from the sun, and the South Pole was one of the darkest places Zuko had ever seen. His Phoenix tail did nothing to shield the wind from his ears, and tiny pinpricks of snow seemed to hit his bare head no matter how tightly he retreated into the hood of his coat.

A lesser man might stop, make camp again, try to wait out the storm and resume his journey once visibility was better. But Zuko was better than that; he had to be better than that. He knew that it was no accident that the last stretch of his journey was taking place in such a world of darkness; that was how destiny worked. This was his final test, his chance to prove once and for all that he deserved his title, his family, his place in the sun.

All Zuko had to do was kill an innocent old woman and cut out her heart.

The winds suddenly whipped up around him, almost pulling his coat clean off his body. Zuko gasped as a chill shot straight through him, reverberating in his chest and making his arms tremble so badly that he lost his grip on the compass, which dropped silently into the snow and promptly disappeared.

“No!” Zuko yelled, falling to his knees, digging through the snow to no avail. Visibility had dropped even more; he couldn’t see much farther than his own hand directly in front of his face. The cold seemed to be seeping through his thick coat, crawling up and into his skin, settling into his core. He sat back on his knees and closed his eyes, trying to find his root, his uncle’s voice rising to the forefront of his mind: fire comes from the breath.

Inhale. Exhale. Zuko could feel his inner fire, burning brightly even as the storm tossed him around. He drew from it and exhaled a long breath of hot steam, hoping to warm the scarf on his face, but the air seemed to go right through the fabric and out into the night.

Fuck. He pulled off one glove and snapped his fingers, pulling a flame out of thin air to sit in his palm, but as Zuko brought his hand near to his face, the fire whipped and flickered and suddenly went out. His second attempt gave the same result, as did his third, before Zuko felt his fingertips go numb and hastily pulled his glove back on to avoid frostbite.

The blizzard wasn’t stopping; in fact, it seemed to get faster, the wind coming closer and closer as it circled around him. Zuko staggered back to his feet, only for a huge gust to come up behind him, catching the wide span of his pack and knocking him head over heels, tumbling through the snow. As Zuko rolled, he struggled to disentangle himself before the straps pulled both his arms off; when he was finally able to sit up again, the pack was nowhere to be seen, just another snow-covered lump in a world of nothing but snow-covered lumps.

A surge of rage and frustration blazed through him and he pulled his hands into tight fists, fireballs erupting from each one, burning his gloves away. “You think that will stop me?” Zuko yelled to the sky, his voice disappearing into the howl of the wind, but the fireballs barely lasted three breaths before they were snuffed out.

This had never happened before. Zuko was no prodigy, not like his sister (he knew that all too well), but he had spent his time in exile training harder than he had ever trained before, and his firebending was incredibly powerful by this point. Despite what everyone said in jeering whispers, he was still Ozai’s son; there was a flame that ran through his family, and he had it, even if he had struggled to find it initially. That fire didn’t just... flicker out with a strong gust of wind; even the most powerful blast from an airbending master wasn’t enough to extinguish his power. And yet the blizzard took Zuko’s fire easily, snuffing it away as if it had never been. He tried again and again, and each time his flames seemed weaker and weaker. But he had to keep going; his hands would freeze if he didn’t.

Something brushed against Zuko’s right hip: a tube in his belt with a message scroll, enchanted by the fire sages so that all he had to do was burn his message into the parchment and let the ashes go with the wind. They would travel to their destination and reassemble themselves when they arrived; no hawks required. Zuko could feel the flame of his inner fire blowing and flickering, as if the wind was inside him somehow.

You won’t find her; you’ll die in the snow first, and no one will know to mourn you. Zuko had felt the woman’s gaze on him, back at the Tiger Seal, and he’d looked away like a coward. Now her warnings were coming back to bite him.

With his hands shaking, he pulled the scroll out and managed to conjure up a weak flame. He inscribed his message— I am Prince Zuko. I’m trapped in a storm, a week’s walk south from the Tiger Seal inn. Send all available ships —and let the flame catch the paper, huddling over it so it wouldn’t die out. The ashes rose into the air, the flecks of grey swirling around him like a tornado, caught by the winds and unable to break free. Please, he begged silently. Please find someone. Anyone. I can’t stop here, not when I’m so close.

Nothing changed; the blizzard continued its relentless onslaught, creeping ever closer, trapping him in. I have to get to shelter, Zuko realized. I have to wait out this storm.

There was part of him, the cowardly and soft part of him, which knew that the storm could probably outlast him, instead of the other way around. Nonetheless, Zuko fell back to his knees and began trying to dig a cave in the snowbank, hissing in pain as his fire failed to protect his hands and his fingers began to freeze. The wind surged up again, blowing his hood off and wrapping his hair around his throat. He gasped, clawing at his neck, but he was trapped and blind and definitely not starting to panic—

He couldn’t breathe. It was impossible to be calm if you couldn’t breathe. Zuko pulled his knife from his belt, but his hands were trembling too much to risk bringing the blade anywhere near his throat, so he reluctantly reached up and began to slice off his Phoenix tail at the root, wincing as the knife jittered against his scalp. After a few tense moments of cutting, his hair fell away and Zuko gulped at the icy air, shivering as it entered his lungs.

Agni, I swear I’ll never fight with Azula again if you let me live through this, he thought despite himself. I’ll light an offering at Grandfather’s tomb every day for the rest of my life. I’ll obey Father’s every command. I’ll stop searching for Mother. I’ll—

Zuko’s eyes widened as the uniform white of the snow was broken by a dark silhouette that seemed to glow light blue around the edges. He opened his mouth to yell for help, but he couldn’t make a sound; the cold seemed to be inside him now, crawling and spreading, freezing him from the inside out. The shape came closer, resolving into the unmistakable outline of a human being.

It’s her, Zuko realized. It has to be her. She’s right there; she’s come to me. I could end this right now. If I can just—

A final wave of cold air slammed into him, and Zuko only had the briefest vision of a flame snuffing out before his head hit something hard and the darkness swallowed him.

In his nightmares, Zuko saw an outline of a woman in the snow, and he reached for her with a weak and trembling hand. She knelt down, murmuring something he couldn’t quite make out, but her presence was soothing and kind and achingly familiar —Mother.

“There you are,” she said, in a voice not quite her own. “I was worried about you.”

Where are you? he tried to ask. Where did you go? Why did you leave?

His mother shook her head, as if she didn’t even hear him, and reached out to the place just under Zuko’s left eye—

No, he pleaded, reaching out and catching her wrist before she could touch the scar. Not like this. The only good thing that came from you leaving is that you never saw me like this.

His mother smiled sadly and began to fade from view. Normally when he had this dream, Zuko would chase and chase without ever catching up to her; this time, he realized, he couldn’t move his legs at all.

Please, he thought, his voice cracking with tears even inside his head. Please don’t let me—

—he bolted upright, gasping for breath, crashing back into the waking world just as suddenly as he’d left it. His heart raced as his eyes slowly refocused and the blurry shapes all around him began to sharpen and resolve. Zuko was no longer stranded in the storm; he was in a room with clean white walls that seemed to smoke very gently, giving off odorless vapour that coated the floor like a thin mist. Instead of the snowbank, he was lying in a bed, covered in furs and blankets, his chest bare.

What the—

“There you are,” someone said—the same voice from his dream. Zuko blinked as the door in front of him opened and a young woman slipped inside. She couldn’t be much older than he was, probably only nineteen or so; her skin was smooth and brown, eyes clear blue like gems, and she wore the unmistakable blue robes of a member of the Water Tribe.

“Where am I?” Zuko asked, wincing his demand coming out as an embarrassing croak. “Who are you?”

“Relax,” the woman said, her voice soft and unhurried as she approached the bed. “You’re safe. My name is Katara. I found you lost in the storm; you stumbled into quite the blizzard out there.”

“You’re telling me,” he scowled. “How long have I been here?”

Katara shrugged. “Two weeks, give or take.”

Zuko cradled his aching head in one hand, barely suppressing a groan. He’d been waylaid by half a month because of that Agni-cursed storm; he had no idea where he was, never mind any of his gear, so that was all going to be a pain to sort out before he could get back on track. With a huffed sigh, he threw the blankets off and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t—” Katara began, but she was cut off as Zuko tried to stand and promptly collapsed into a heap on the floor. He groaned as she knelt beside him and helped him back up.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen for a little while, I’m afraid,” she said once they settled back onto the bed. Zuko let out a shaky breath, watching his legs tremble from the exertion.

“What—”

“—You were out in the storm for...well, I don’t know exactly how long, but you were dying. I brought you back here, and I’ve been healing you ever since, but it’s going to take some time.”

Zuko exhaled tensely, through pursed lips. “Great,” he sighed.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Remarkable. It had been so long since no one had recognized him, and it made Zuko feel strangely calm. He exhaled again, smoother this time. “Zuko. My name is Zuko.”

Katara held out a hand, which he shook reluctantly. “It’s nice to meet you, Zuko,” she said. “Would you like something to eat?”

At the mention of food, Zuko’s stomach growled loudly, and she smirked.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

As Katara rose to leave, Zuko finally looked down at his chest, where an ugly red scab now sat directly over his heart. He winced, shivering as he recalled how the cold had seemed to crawl into his body and consume him from the inside out. Hypothermia is a hell of a thing, he mused to himself. I can’t believe I thought that my firebending was—

He stopped.

The room was warm, but Zuko still felt cold, and something was off ; something was wrong in his chest. He reached for his inner fire and came up with nothing. It had never been this weak before. It had never been this quiet, this tiny, this dim .

Zuko looked up, eyes wide, and saw Katara standing at the door again, now holding a tray of food. He looked back down at his hands and snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. He reached again for his inner fire, more desperately this time, but all he felt was a bitter spike of cold.

Where is it? What’s wrong with me?! Zuko felt panic start to consume him as he desperately searched inside his mind, trying and failing to grasp any semblance of the heat he’d felt his whole life, and flinched away violently as Katara set the tray down on the mattress beside him.

“Zuko, listen—”

“What have you done to me?” he gasped, too shocked to try and cover the fear in his voice. “Why can’t I bend?”

Katara raised both hands. “Please try to be calm,” she said, which only made the creeping panic worse.

It was all wrong, profoundly wrong, badly wrong. He felt empty, hollow, dark. Zuko swallowed around a huge lump in his throat, his heart pounding as he grasped the truth:

His inner fire wasn’t just weak; it was dead.

Katara’s features began to swim as tears filled his eyes. She went to place her hand on top of his, but he yanked it away, and she sighed.

“The storms up here are full of magic,” she murmured. “From the moon, and from the South Pole itself. The wind and the cold caused damage to your heart, and—and your chi is blocked.”

He sat back, hitting the headboard with a thud, shaking his head in tiny motions back and forth, dreading the words he knew he was about to hear:

“I’m so sorry, Zuko. Your bending is gone.”

Chapter Text

“Gone?!”

Katara nodded. “Yes.”

Zuko felt ill. “What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean that you can’t bend; your spiritual connection to your ability has been severed.”

Zuko ran his hand across the back of his head, swallowing a wave of revulsion and regret as his fingers grazed the spot where his Phoenix tail once was. “This can’t be happening,” he moaned.

Katara’s mouth was set in a thin line. “I’d been told it was possible, but I didn’t think I’d ever see it with my own two eyes, let alone have a chance to heal it—”

Zuko felt his anger building. “Well I’m delighted to be your first test subject,” he yelled, but the tone felt off, the words awkward as they left his lips. Why don’t I feel right?

She sat back, appalled. “You’re not my test subject!” she exclaimed. “I was trying to help you!”

Zuko lashed out his arm, sending the tray clattering to the floor. “Well you’ve clearly done a great job so far,” he snarled. Katara stood up, arms crossed over her chest.

“If you don’t want to be healed, just say so,” she snapped back. “I want to help restore your bending, but if you’d rather be alone, then have it your way.” And with that, she turned on her heel and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

The sound was the spark that ignited Zuko’s anger in full, and he gave in to it as he always did; he threw his blankets off the bed, upended the side table with a shove, and whipped his pillow at the wall, where it caused ripples in the smoke. He pushed himself off the bed, weak limbs be damned, and sat with his back against the frame, a snarl on his lips, chest heaving as the fury coursed through him. But then he paused, face falling.

It’s not right.

Zuko was more than acquainted with anger. Anger was part of what drove firebending; it was all about channeling the emotion into power, and maintaining a strict discipline over it.  Anger was a powerful weapon, blazing and roaring and consuming everything in sight. Anger sat in his mind all the time, coiled like a spring, waiting to be unleashed. And while control was crucial, there was always the temptation to let go, to unleash the force in full, to let the inferno rise. The aftermath of an outburst was like a forest after a fire: quiet, eerie, and dormant, infused with a cathartic echo that soothed the reality of the damage done.

But Zuko didn’t feel any of that.

Instead, the anger pulsing through him felt flattened, cold, and lifeless. There was no perverse pleasure to be found in surrendering to it; the satisfaction rang hollow, his catharsis denied. There was no spark to it. There was no fire.

He closed his eyes, scrubbing his hand over his mouth, and bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper.

So this was it, then. He couldn’t firebend; he couldn’t walk more than a step or two; he couldn’t even feel angry properly. The only thing left to do was nothing; feel nothing, bend nothing, accomplish nothing, live like a nothing. He was trapped at the bottom of the world, in the dark and the cold, and no one— no one —knew where he was.

Zuko wasn’t sure how long he sat there on the floor, staring into space, forcing his mind to remain blank. He had to come up with some kind of plan to escape, but didn’t know where to even start. The view outside his window gave no clues about his location, nor the time of night; the stars shone fiercely and the sky remained inky blue-black, and no matter how long he stared at the horizon he never saw the telltale blush of light that signaled an imminent sunrise.

Come on, Zuko begged the sun. Rise. Show me some light. Show me there’s something left to hope for.

He kept waiting.

“Spirits, you’re a piece of work.”

His eyes fluttered open and he groaned, partly from stiffness and partly from the sight of Katara hovering above him like a wasp.

“What are you doing here?”

Katara cocked an eyebrow. “I live here,” she retorted. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“I—” the details of his meltdown came back in a flash, closing Zuko’s throat to whatever excuse had been on the tip of his tongue. Katara rolled her eyes and turned away, gathering the bedding up from where he’d strewn it, remaking the bed with brisk efficiency.

“Listen, I know you’re having a rough time of things, but could you try to avoid destroying my home in the process?”

“Excuse me?” Zuko was wide awake now, and glared at her with every ounce of intensity he could muster. For all that he was an exile and an embarrassment, he was still royalty, and it had been a very long time since anyone had dared to speak to him with such audacity.

Katara was unfazed by his scowl. “This is my house. I brought you here? I’m Katara, remember me?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Could’ve fooled me, but there’s always a chance for a miracle.”

Agni, she was quick with a comeback. Zuko tried to stand, but hissed in pain when his whole body ached—revenge for spending the night sleeping on the floor.

Katara circled around the bed and knelt beside him, holding out her hand. “Now,” she said, eyes sparkling with equal parts amusement and exasperation, “are you going to behave yourself, or do you need a little more time on the floor to calm down?”

If I was anywhere else on earth, I think I might kill this girl, Zuko realized. But he nonetheless gripped her offered forearm, with only a small bit of hesitation to placate his pride; Katara pulled him to his feet swiftly and helped him back under the blankets, and then set the side table back upright.

“I brought more food,” she said, fetching another tray from the long table near the door. “Unless you’d rather toss it around too.”

Now it was Zuko’s turn to roll his eyes. “No,” he shot back, accepting the tray from her. The food was simple—a seafood stew and a bread roll still warm from the oven—but it was tasty, and gone far too soon. With a full stomach, there were far fewer echoes in Zuko’s head, and his irritation began to feel like an old familiar friend.

“Glad you’ve got your appetite back,” Katara grinned. “Your healing will probably go much quicker if you’re not hungry.”

“I always wanted to get stranded in a Water Tribe hut while a stranger applied walrus blubber to my scrapes and bruises,” Zuko grumbled. “I don’t have time for this.”

Katara looked incredulous. “Did you have an urgent appointment you’re going to miss?”

Zuko pressed his lips together and mentally smacked himself upside the head. Nice going, idiot.

“No,” he managed, sounding ridiculously guilty. “I’m—I was on a mission, and I got lost, and I’m hoping to return to my crew when we rendezvous at the Tiger Seal.”

It was a messy lie, but a decently believable one, especially if she didn’t think he was Fire Nation, though his delivery left something to be desired. If Katara doubted his story—and, really, how could she not—she didn’t say anything; she just kept looking at him with that same incredulous expression, and Zuko scowled and looked away, pulling the blankets up over his chest, hoping she’d take the hint and leave him alone.

“For the record, we don’t use blubber for healing.”

Is she still here? He huffed. “What?”

Katara reached for the pouch she wore on her belt, and when she pulled her cupped hand back Zuko could see it was filled with liquid that glowed a bright otherworldly shade of blue. “Spirit water from the pole,” she said by way of explanation, tipping her palmful back into the pouch and recapping it tightly. “It’s got magic properties that help with healing, but it isn’t quick.”

“Then what good is it?” he snapped, and she glared.

“It’s still magical. Boy, you’re itching for a fight, aren’t you?”

“What good are you , anyway?” he snarled, finding his footing once again in the anger he knew so well. Part of Zuko, the part of him that sounded like his uncle, was pleading for him to stop and be more sensible, but he couldn’t help it. “What could be so wrong with me that you’d need to wave some glowing spittle around? I bet you’re making it up. I bet you’re just keeping me here because you haven’t seen a man in a w—”

Zuko was cut off abruptly as Katara slapped him across the face. He gaped, holding a hand to his cheek, as she fixed him with a glare that would make even the boldest Fire Nation admiral flinch.

“Your heart has been frozen,” she snapped. “The blizzard’s magic got deep into your system and froze your heart, okay? It’s slowly turning to ice. Every time it beats, it gets harder and harder, and soon it will freeze completely.”

Zuko felt the blood drain from his face, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest. “You—you’re joking,” he sputtered. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m not, and it’s not,” came the response. “I’m researching a permanent cure, but until I find one, I have to go in with the, ahem, glowing spittle, and melt the ice crystals that are forming as we speak. If I don’t, you won’t even make it back to the Tiger Seal. Believe me or don’t; it’s your life on the line. I want to help you but if you keep being such a little pissant I swear I’ll throw you right back out in the snow.”

Silence hovered, heavy and tense, as they glared at each other.

“What about my bending?” Zuko finally asked, sullen.

“Your chi will probably remain blocked until your heart begins to heal properly,” she replied. “I can’t really say for sure.”

“So I might never—” he swallowed. “I might never bend again?”

“Maybe.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. Agni help me.

Katara huffed. “Is your life worth so little to you that you’d rather die than never bend again? Lots of people get through without bending a single thing their whole lives.”

“You don’t understand,” he croaked. “Bending is—it’s part of you. I can’t just—”

“—sure you can,” Katara cut him off. “You think you’re the first person in the world to cope with an unimaginable loss?”

Zuko felt himself crumpling. “So those are my options? Stay here or die?”

Katara folded her arms. “You know what I can offer to you. You can take it or leave it.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Zuko heard his uncle chiding him in his gentle gruff voice: be nice to her, Prince Zuko. She’s taken you into her home and is caring for you sight unseen. He huffed, shoulders slumping. He might be foolish and hotheaded at times, but Zuko wasn’t stupid, no matter what people said; he knew that going back out into the snow would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant. He had no gear, no backup, no bending. Nothing.

Nothing.

Katara was still there, sitting patiently, watching him. Zuko finally flicked his eyes up to meet her gaze.

“Can you fix me?” he asked. Internally, he winced again: if I have to get used to sounding this pathetic whenever I talk to her, I’ll just walk outside and freeze to spare myself the embarrassment. This is humiliating.

Katara nodded. “Yes,” she answered. “I think so.”

“You think so?”

There was something in the way she straightened her back, chin raised and head held high, that made her seem much taller for a moment. “Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?”

Zuko’s eyes narrowed. “It would be nice to get a more definitive answer,” he muttered.

“Well, that’s all I have for you. I’ll do what I can to get you back up on your feet, so you can return to the coast and find your men.”

“And my bending?”

She reached over and covered his hand with hers; he snatched his arm back almost by reflex, and tried not to see how her face fell before she replied.

“I honestly don’t know. But I’m going to try.”

That would have to be good enough. “Fine,” Zuko spat. “Do what you need to do.” He might be trapped here, but there was no rule that said he had to like it.

“Okay,” Katara said. “Lie back down, and, um—” Her eyes slid to Zuko’s torso, where he was holding the blankets up over his chest with one fist, and a jolt of emotion shot through him—embarrassment? Shame? Shyness? Ugh.

He groaned. “Are you serious—”

“I’m afraid I am, yes.”

Zuko did not like to be touched, but his uncle always used to say that the most incredible decisions were often made when there was nothing left to lose. “Fine,” he said again, settling back in on the bed, suppressing the shiver that passed through him when Katara placed her hands on his chest, directly above his heart. Her brows knit together as she concentrated, eyes flicking back and forth ever so slightly, as if she was dreaming. The water clung to her hands, forming a liquid glove, and the glow seemed to pulse gently in time with his heartbeat. Zuko craned his neck to see what she was doing, but it didn’t seem like anything was happening, and boredom almost instantly began to itch at the back of his brain.

Moments stretched into seconds stretched into minutes before the silence became overwhelming and Zuko exhaled through pursed lips.  

“How does the spirit water work?”

Katara smiled out of one side of her mouth. “That’s a secret,” she replied, a hint of steel in her voice, and Zuko rolled his eyes.

“I can’t know what you’re doing to me?”

“I’m healing you.”

He sighed again, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “Yes, I know that. How?”

“It can find the things about you that are broken, and start to fix them,” Katara explained.

Zuko scoffed. “That sounds like a whole bunch of nonsense.”

Katara arched her eyebrow, giving him a look that was becoming infuriatingly familiar. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible patient?”

He echoed the gesture back at her with his one remaining eyebrow, and jutted out his chin defiantly. “It’s been brought up before.”

Go ahead, he goaded her silently. Look. I know you want to. And, sure enough, her eyes flicked ever so slightly down from his sight line, sweeping to the left and then upwards and back over—a movement that Zuko had all but memorized by now. He’d seen it in hundreds of people, from loyal Fire Nation soldiers to cowering Earth Kingdom peasants to the rogue pirates who fought for control over the southeastern seas. Everyone took in his scar the same way; everyone got the same look of pity and revulsion, their mouths twitching with unspoken platitudes and their cheeks going pale. Every single time it happened, a part of Zuko always wanted to shrink back from the scrutiny; his left hand twitched with the urge to cover his eye, to turn away, to change the subject. But his scar was the cursed mark of the banished prince; covering it up was an act even more dishonourable than the way he’d acquired it in the first place, and Zuko couldn’t afford to lose any more honour than he already had. So he stared back, maintained his eye contact, held his head high. He knew what he looked like; he couldn’t hide it, and there was no point in pretending it hadn’t happened.

Katara didn’t shrink as obviously as others did, which he chalked up to her experience as a healer, and she returned his stare sooner than expected, her eyes filled not with pity but with something far more unsettling: kindness.

“Fire Nation?” The only two words she needed.

“Yes,” Zuko answered reluctantly, because it wasn’t a lie.

Katara bit her lower lip, and her hands pressed a little harder onto his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Zuko lay his head back and studied the ceiling. “Yeah,” he replied under his breath, “I am too.”

The healing session lasted another few hours; Zuko dozed off and awoke to find himself alone once again, with a tray of food on the side table. Beside the bowl sat a scroll of Water Tribe children’s stories, with a note attached: in case you get bored.

Zuko felt the right corner of his mouth tug upwards into a smile, and he scrunched up his face to erase it. Katara was kind, but it didn’t change things; he was still trapped, and she was a complete stranger standing between him and his destiny. Until he could fight back, she was an obstacle, if not an enemy.

He ignored the way his heart twinged in his chest, and reached for the scroll anyway.

It was nearly impossible to keep track of the time with any real accuracy, but Zuko began to get a sense of routine based on Katara’s comings and goings. She would bring him breakfast in the darkness of morning, then lunch a few hours later, though the sky had barely changed. The little room felt like it was yanked out of time and space, so that nothing changed at all no matter how much time did pass. While the healing sessions weren’t painful, Zuko would always find himself tattered from exhaustion afterwards, as if he’d run a very long distance; nonetheless, he started to find that his muscles were gradually getting stronger, his appetite more consistent, his heartbeat more regular. His inner fire remained cold and dead, a fact which Zuko tried his best to ignore; it was easier to pretend, here at the end of the world, that he was someone different. That his bending belonged to another Prince Zuko, a different one who wasn’t such a colossal failure, and that he was just a traveler with a similar name and face.

It wasn’t going to change things, but it helped prevent him from descending into complete and utter despair.

On the fourth or fifth day, Katara brought two trays of food instead of just one.

“Do you need to check up on me?” Zuko grunted. “I promise I’m eating all of it.”

“Nope!” she shrugged. “I just figured you must be getting lonely, here all by yourself. I can leave if you want.”

He inhaled, ready to tell her to go, but he didn’t, and so she stayed.

What began as one shared meal soon became two, then three, always spent in silence. Katara would spend the time between breakfast and lunch with her hands on Zuko’s chest, healing him; the sessions always ended when she began to yawn, so Zuko suspected that she was getting in a brief nap before dinner, but the hallway outside his room was dark and his brief glimpses of it yielded no answers. As Zuko read through the scrolls she brought him, he realized just how little he knew about the Southern Water Tribe. His grandfather had purged the great library of Caldera many years before Zuko had been born, so the sources he had about the other nations had been carefully censored to reflect the Fire Nation’s glory above all else. The scrolls Katara gave Zuko didn’t contain any information that would be useful to his mission, but he had to admit that the stories were charming; they depicted the South Pole as a world of incredible magic and wonder, instead of the wasteland of cold and darkness that he saw whenever he looked out the window.

“Why hasn’t the sun come up?” he asked one afternoon, while Katara pressed her palms to his heart.

She looked over to the window, and a flash of joy crossed her features. “The sun only rises once a year,” she replied.

“What?” Zuko bolted upright, almost knocking his head against hers. Katara stepped back, hands raised.

“Yeah. It’s—we’re at the bottom of the world. It’s dark for half the year, and light for the other half.”

Of course it fucking is . “Well,” is all he could manage to say out loud.

“It takes some getting used to, I’ll admit,” Katara said, “but it’s not all bad. The moon is very beautiful, and the Southern Lights will take your breath away.”

Months and months without the sun on his face, without the warmth spreading across his skin and seeping into his soul. Zuko lay back down before Katara had to ask, and squeezed his eyes shut to prevent any tears from escaping.

In his nightmares, Caldera was bathed in eerie moonlight, the vibrant red decorations of the palace recast in stark black. Zuko sat in his bed, his chambers pulsing with the monsters hiding at the edge of every shadow. A horrifically familiar singsong voice echoed to him from the door, where he could see a black silhouette leaning against the frame.

“Dad’s gonna kill you!”

Azula always lies, he whispered to himself, but no sounds came out of his mouth.

“Come now, Prince Zuko,” came another voice, this time breathed directly in his ear. “That’s no way to talk about your sister. What kind of Fire Lord will you be if you can’t get along with your only sibling?”

Father . Zuko flinched, burying his face in his hands, his mind screaming at him too late that he had to stand up straight, had to obey every command, had to be good, had to be good, had to be—

A roaring crowd. The sound of drums in the distance, thudding with ferocious speed like a quickening heartbeat. His chest was bare, his feet rooted to the ground no matter how badly he wanted to run, and when Zuko lowered his arms he saw the fire bearing down on him. He tried to retaliate, but his bending was gone, the connection severed.

No! he screamed, falling to his knees, and then the scene changed again; he was in the throne room, kneeling on the floor. The throne was surrounded by bright white flames which failed to illuminate the face of the man who sat there.

“Tell me, Zuko: what good are you, if you can’t firebend?”

Zuko closed his eyes. His father had asked him the same question at the age of seven; back then, he had responded with stubborn determination, promising his father that he could and would become a great firebending master. This time, he told the truth:

None at all. I’m useless.

“That’s right,” came the response. “I’m glad we finally agree.”

Zuko risked a glance up to the throne. Please, father, he said, just as he had so many months before. Please tell me what I can do to restore my honour and come home.

“Bring me the heart of the last waterbender,” Ozai said, just as he had, and Zuko hung his head in shame.

I got lost, he whispered, feeling his cheeks get hot. I don’t know where I am.

Ozai stood up and walked through the fire, down the steps and across the floor until he was directly in front of where Zuko knelt.

“That’s no matter,” he said, teeth flashing white as he grinned. “I’ve got her right here.” With a snap of his fingers he summoned a figure held in chains, her arms spread wide and legs shackled together. She was old, wrinkled and frail, but her eyes were bright and blue and clear. Zuko looked down to find a knife in his hand, the blade shining as it reflected the flames around him.

Zuko felt his heart drop to his toes. Wait, but I—

“I know you can’t do it,” Ozai sneered. “Why do you think I sent you to the very bottom of the world? You’re never coming back. You’ll never regain your honour. You don’t have the guts to do what it takes to be Fire Lord. You’re nothing . You’ll never—”

And then Zuko was on his feet, charging, yelling, plunging the knife into the woman’s chest; and as Ozai’s laughter filled his ears Zuko looked into the face of the last waterbender and for just a second she looked just like Katara—

He snapped awake with a jolt, heart racing, limbs frozen in place.

“Hey,” came Katara’s voice, slow and calm. “Are you alright? Was it a nightmare?”

Zuko managed to nod, stiffly jerking his head up and down as his eyes raced over Katara’s body, searching for a knife hilt, for blood, for the shadow of his father standing just behind her.

“You’re, uh—you’re crying. I think.”

Adrenaline was still coursing through him, making it impossible to feel anything else, so Zuko sat up and accepted the handkerchief she handed him without hesitation. “Sorry,” he rasped, dabbing at his right eye.

Katara smiled. “It’s okay, really,” she said. “We’ve all had bad dreams.”

I bet mine are scarier than yours, Zuko thought, breathing deeply and listening to his heartbeat slow and stabilize. “How long were you standing there?”

“It’s only been a few minutes. You fell asleep, so I figured I’d just keep going and finish the session. I hope that was okay.”

His father’s laughter was still ringing in his ears, making Katara sound very far away, so Zuko just nodded. “S’fine,” he mumbled. “I’ll try not to fall asleep again.”

Katara sat on the edge of the bed, close to his right hip. “Can I ask you a question?” she said softly.

“I—yeah.”

Her eyes moved back and forth as she searched his face. “Were you dreaming of…” she trailed off, but her gaze had landed squarely on his scar, and Zuko sighed silently.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Among other things.”

“When was—”

“—I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, bracing himself for the usual flash of pity, but Katara shrugged.

“Okay,” she agreed. “We don’t have to talk about it. But...listen, this spirit water is powerful. I could—I don’t want to presume, but...I could try to heal that. If you want.” She gestured to the pouch at her waist.

Zuko’s heart skipped a beat.

“You can heal this?” he whispered.

“I think it’s possible,” she said. “Probably worth a try. Do you want to?”

Zuko blinked as his father’s words echoed. You’re never coming back. You’ll never regain your honour. You don’t have the guts to do what it takes to be Fire Lord. You’re nothing.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

“Maybe,” he finally said. “When I’m finished with my mission.”

“And when will that be?” Katara asked.

Zuko thought of the waterbender in his dream; of the fear in her eyes, the lines on her face, the way she looked horrified and disappointed as the knife sank into her chest. He looked away.

“When I’ve done the worst thing you can possibly imagine.”

Chapter Text

The candle was pristine, white wax with a neatly trimmed wick, positively begging to be lit.

“Go on, Prince Zuko. Try it again.”

He was small again, sitting in Master Kunyo’s chambers, his fingers still stubby with baby fat. I’m trying, he whined. It won’t work.

“It’s easy, Your Highness. Just snap your fingers—” he demonstrated “—and draw from your inner fire, through your root. Keep yourself grounded, and don’t forget to breathe.”

It all seemed like far too much to do at once, but Zuko squinted in deep concentration as he inhaled, exhaled, grounded himself, and— snap.

A tiny flame appeared in his palm, flickering and sickly, winking out before he had the chance to touch his hand to the candle. Zuko felt a sob bubbling up through his throat.

I can’t do it, he whispered, his cheeks burning with shame.

Master Kunyo scoffed. “Of course you can, Your Highness. You’ve done it before.”

No, Zuko said, his voice deeper now, his hands longer, his left eyelid pulled taut from scar tissue. You don’t understand. My fire, it’s—it’s gone.

“ Your fire is always with you, Prince Zuko,” Kunyo smiled. “It will never be snuffed out. The inner flame of a firebender is as eternal and powerful as the sun in the sky.”

Zuko felt ice spreading with every beat of his heart. I’ve lost it, he cried, shoulders shaking. It’s been snuffed out and I don’t know who I am anymore.

“I know who you are,” came a different voice, and Zuko found himself back in the throne room, staring at the shadowy silhouette of his father. “You’re exactly who I knew you would be at birth. I should have thrown you over the city walls when I still had the chance.”

Zuko turned to see the waterbender suspended in chains, only this time it was undeniably Katara who hung there, arms pulled out to her sides and head dropped to her chest.

“What will you do, when you face her?” his father sneered. “How will you fight if you can’t bend?”

I know how to fight, he responded stubbornly, wincing as his voice cracked. I don’t need fire to defeat an old woman.

“Then do it,” Ozai commanded, and the three words reverberated through Zuko’s entire body like particularly painful heartbeats.

Zuko felt the weight of the knife in his hand. He was already running towards her, arm raised, ready to strike, when Katara looked up, right at him, and the blue of her eyes was like a blazing beam of light. Zuko ground to a halt, his heart thudding painfully in his chest, each beat knocking him down like a punch: he fell to his knees as Ozai’s mocking laughter filled his ears. Zuko watched the shadow of his father bend over Katara, a fireball already in hand, and no matter how he tried he couldn’t manage to scream—

His eyes snapped open and he just barely failed to muffle his gasp as the last of the dream left him; he breathed in shudders, inhaling deeply and exhaling slow, trying to stop his heart from racing.

“Nightmare again?” came Katara’s voice, and Zuko turned to see her sitting at the large table in the corner, eyes still focused on the scroll in her hands. His body hadn’t fully adjusted to the complete lack of sunlight, which meant that he often fell asleep in the middle of the day, so it wasn’t uncommon to see Katara in his room when he woke up.

He ran a hand through his hair, which had grown enough that the root of his Phoenix Tail was no longer visible. “Yeah,” he replied hoarsely. “No chance you can cure those?”

Katara pursed her lips as she thought. “I mean, I can give you some wine, if you want. It might not cure the nightmares but you probably wouldn’t care as much.”

Zuko took a solid breath before he made an effort to hide his smirk. In the past week or so, he and Katara had fallen into a fairly comfortable routine of healing and rehabilitation; he was getting stronger, but it didn’t take long before his heart would give out and he’d find himself weak-kneed again. Katara was a genuinely excellent healer, for all that Zuko sometimes suspected that their sessions were an excuse for her to touch his chest (how long had it been since she’d seen another human being? Did she have a husband? There was no ring on her finger, but Agni only knew what kind of betrothal signs they used all the way down here, if they even did). She never brought up his scar, which was a blessing, and Zuko refrained from asking her any questions about herself, for fear of what she’d ask of him in return.

“Want some dinner?” Katara said, snapping Zuko from his reverie. He nodded, pulling on the greenish-brown robe she’d given him, and she smiled. “Think you can make it to the table this time?”

“Sure.”

She came over, wrapping an arm around his back and helping him to his feet, steadying him as his knees wobbled.

“I feel like a baby fox antelope,” Zuko complained, to which Katara laughed.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “I’ve never seen one. But if they’re as jittery as you, it’s a wonder they’re still around!”

“They’re pests,” he admitted through gritted teeth as he sat in a chair. “Invasive species, where I’m from.”

Katara grinned. “Well, you’re enough of a pest that I’d believe it.”

“You’ve got a terrible bedside manner.”

“And you’re a terrible patient. We’re perfect for each other.”

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Zuko studied the wall beside him, watching as the thin coating of mist curled up and down like a gentle ghost. He reached out to touch it, furrowing his brow as he realized—

“Ice.” He murmured the word mostly to himself, wondering how he’d never taken notice before.

“Yes,” Katara said, setting two plates down on the table. “The water vapour provides extra insulation, so we don’t have to bundle up indoors.”

That’s smart, Zuko thought. Too smart for a Water Tribe girl to do alone. It had to be—

“The waterbender made this, didn’t she?” he muttered under his breath. Katara sat down across from him and picked up her spoon.

“A very long time ago,” she replied, her voice matter-of-fact. “Before I was born.”

Zuko couldn’t help himself; he pounced, asking the question that had been haunting him ever since he’d woken up after the storm:

“So the waterbender is real, then?”

Katara tilted her head, watching him watch her, before finally answering. “Yes. She’s real.”

She’s real. Zuko felt his heart pound against his ribs.

Katara said it so off-handedly, so easily, as if it wasn’t information that could change Zuko’s life forever. As if he hadn’t been sitting in limbo for weeks now, suspended in time and space, and all he’d had to do this whole time was ask her. His hand dug into the flesh of his thigh under the table as he fought to keep his tone casual.

“D-do you know her?”

“I don’t think anyone really knows her, but I’ve met her, yes,” Katara said. Zuko blinked, and she smirked. “What, surprised I’d talk about her at all to you?”

“I, well. Yeah.”

She shrugged. “Why else would you have been out here, this far south? You’re not the first person I’ve come across who was looking for her. Not the first to almost die of hypothermia, either.” Her mouth flattened. “I know you’re dying to ask me about her, so just do it. Though just to get it out of the way, her heart is not made of gold.”

This was unprecedented. Zuko could feel a million questions crowding against his mouth, each fighting to be asked first, all threatening to erupt out of him at once like a volcano.

“Did the waterbender create the blizzard?” the words escaped before he could stop them, and Katara pursed her lips in thought.

“Hmm. Not directly, but her presence does increase the potency of the magic around these parts.”

“Will you take me to her?” Zuko cringed internally, digging his nails into the skin of his thigh. Why can’t I interrogate people properly, damn it?

A small chuckle. “Why? What use is she to you?”

“I—” Zuko faltered.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

He cleared his throat. “It’s about my mission. I need her help.”

Katara swallowed her stew. “And what makes you think she’s interested in your mission?”

She’s playing with you, he realized. Just a few weeks ago, this kind of coyness would have sent Zuko into a rage; now, sitting across the table from this infuriatingly mysterious creature who was challenging him at every turn, he just looked down and traced a droplet of water across the surface of the table.

She has information, he thought. It doesn’t hurt to be nice and get what you need. It doesn’t make you any softer than you already are.

“I don’t,” he finally said. “But I’m...it’s my last chance to set things right, and go home. It’s my destiny to meet her.” And kill her.

“Destiny, huh?” Katara rolled a bit of bread between forefinger and thumb. “You really believe in all of that?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

Her lips pursed as she thought. “No, I don’t think I do. I think destiny is actually incredibly cruel.”

Zuko bristled. “How can you say that?” he retorted, unable to mask the emotion in his voice. “It’s the one thing that gives life meaning!”

“That’s not true at all.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“Because the waterbender had a destiny once,” Katara said, cradling her chin in her hand.

He blinked. “She...what? Once? You don’t have a destiny once , like you see fireworks once or witness a rabid armadillo lion once. It’s something you have forever, until you fulfill it.”

Katara shook her head. “A hundred years ago, when the Fire Nation first began invading our land, the Southern Water Tribe elders came together in an historic meeting; every leader, every healer, every man or woman who was considered wise, they all gathered to discuss how they might deal with the imminent threat of destruction. The Fire Nation had once been an important ally to the Water Tribe, but relations had grown distant in the past few hundred years, and let’s just say that occupation and death was a less than ideal reunion option.

“The Southern Water Tribe did not have very many treasures to share, and their resources would only appeal so much to Fire Nation folk. Our military forces were a fraction of the size, and most of our waterbenders were killed in the first few battles. At the time, the elders weren’t sure if the Fire Nation would try to establish diplomatic relations and colonies like they were doing with the Earth Kingdom, or if they were going to try and wipe us from the face of the earth. Faced with the potential decimation of our people, the elders voted to give the Fire Nation their most precious asset: the last waterbender left alive. She would be betrothed to a member of the Fire Lord’s inner circle, in an effort to secure a truce between the two nations.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Zuko said.

Katara recoiled. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “She was the last person to hold the most powerful secrets of her people, and she was to be given away like chattel, to live out the rest of her life in a land that hated her, married to a man she did not love, treated like a pawn in a political gambit that might not even pay off. The waterbender knew the truth: the Fire Nation would never stop, not until they’d brought the entire world under their thumb and eradicated the traditions of anyone who wasn’t like them. So instead of obeying, the waterbender gathered the precious treasures of the Southern Water Tribe, and she fled to the very tip of the Pole, where it was too cold for most other humans to survive. She built a fortress of snow and ice, hidden by multiple storms, and she’s been there ever since.”

Multiple storms. Zuko swallowed the lump in his throat. How close had he gotten to the waterbender before he succumbed to the blizzard? How close had he been to fulfilling his quest, only to fail again, like he always did?

He shook his head of the thought and forced his mind back to the conversation at hand. “So she left her people to fight on their own, and lose,” he said. “That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Her destiny was to save her people, and she ran away instead.”

Katara shook her head. “I disagree,” she replied. “The Southern Water Tribe has survived through the war by virtue of being inconspicuous and innocuous enough to avoid seeming like a significant threat. She removed the things that would make the Fire Nation interested in us, and has kept them safe ever since. Sometimes you need to carve a new path through the snow, no matter how hard it may be.”

Zuko thought of his struggle through the snowbanks and exhaled through puffed cheeks. “If you say so,” he muttered. “I still think she should have stayed and fought.”

“She could have died, and then we’d have been even worse off,” Katara said. “The Fire Nation is savage and cruel, especially to benders. This way, the Southern Water Tribe could claim that all their benders were gone, sparing countless innocent villages from raids. We were able to survive, in this new world the Fire Nation wrought. Sometimes that’s enough.”

He felt a familiar pang of shame. “The Fire Nation thinks that the war is about bringing glory to savages, to shining a light in dark places.”

“Oh? And how do you know that?”

He blanched, mentally scrambling for an excuse. “Oh, I, um. I’ve spoken to them, during my travels.” It’s not technically a lie. “I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve seen what the war has done to the citizens of the occupied nations. It’s...not been pretty.”

In this, at least, Zuko could be truthful.

Katara sighed. “You’re lucky,” she replied. “I’ve spent my life stuck here at the Pole. I’ve always dreamed of seeing the other nations with my own eyes. Even the Fire Nation, for all that it’s full of murderers. I hear the capital city is lovely.”

Zuko returned his gaze to the table and shivered as he imagined the warmth of the sun on his skin. “It’s the most beautiful place on Earth,” he murmured despite himself.

“Have you been there?”

Me and my big mouth. “I—um. Yes. A few times.” Please stop asking questions, he begged silently, feeling his pulse increase.

Katara’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, I—for some reason I thought you were from the Earth Kingdom.”

Zuko forced out a weak chuckle, his heart beating so fast he was sure he’d keel over and die right there at the table. “How could you tell?”

“Well, you had the shaved head but no tattoos, so you probably aren’t an Air Nomad,” she counted off on her fingers. “I’d know in a heartbeat if you were Water Tribe, but you’re definitely aren’t from around here. And judging by your...well. The Fire Nation wouldn’t burn one of their own like that, so that leaves Earth Kingdom.”

You’d be surprised what the Fire Nation can do, Zuko thought bitterly, but outwardly he nodded. “You’re right. I’m—from Ba Sing Se. My mission has been...very far-reaching. We’ve had a chance to go to places that most others wouldn’t.” He paused, and then: “like the South Pole, for instance.”

Tell me more about the waterbender, is what he meant.

“You’ll have to tell me about your travels sometime,” is what Katara said, with a finality to her tone that added and if you’re smart you’ll accept the change of subject.

Zuko forced his lips into a grimace he hoped seemed casual. “Maybe.” He pushed around his stew a few times, his appetite gone, and waited for the resulting awkward silence to become amicable again as his thoughts roiled.

You’re lying to her. She would hate you if she knew who and what you really are. You’re too cowardly to take pride in your heritage. She’s going to find out sooner or later, and then she’ll hate you even more.

It was funny how those thoughts always sprang to mind in his father’s voice.

“Wait,” Katara blurted suddenly, and Zuko jumped, dropping his spoon with a clatter.

“Y-yes?”

She regarded him with a skeptical squint, pausing for a moment that felt to Zuko like a million years before she finally spoke.

“...Did you say you saw a rabid armadillo lion?”

Zuko almost collapsed with relief. “Yeah,” he replied. “On the outskirts of the Earth Kingdom, on a...a hunting trip with my uncle when I was fourteen.”

Katara pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Oh my god,” she whispered behind her hands. “That must have been terrifying. ”

Against his better judgement, Zuko nodded. “It wasn’t fun, I’ll tell you that,” he said. “We didn’t even try to hunt it; we just turned around and ran.”

“Did it chase you?”

The curiosity and passion in her voice was infectious, and Zuko felt his heartbeat quicken as he leaned forward, a real smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If it had, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. But as it was, I saw my fifty-seven-year-old uncle climb a tree faster than a fox squirrel to get away from that thing. And by that I mean he literally outraced a fox squirrel.”

Katara burst out laughing, her voice like pealing bells, severing the tension that had been pulling at Zuko’s mind; and as she peppered him with further questions, he felt an odd blush of warmth across his chest for the first time in weeks, and all he thought was: oh.

After that dinner, something shifted. Zuko didn’t spend the healing sessions awkwardly staring at the ceiling anymore; he found himself instead visualizing his heart, imagining Katara melting the ice crystals and restoring him back to full health, day by day. Their meals were never spent in silence again; while she was infuriatingly tight-lipped about the waterbender no matter how casually Zuko asked, Katara was utterly fascinated by the world outside of the South Pole, and her questions about Zuko’s travels were blessedly limited to general inquiries that allowed him to give as much or as little detail as he wished.

And, remarkably, he did give details, telling her stories of the things he’d seen during his banishment, always careful to omit the specifics of why he’d gone traveling in the first place. Always smoothing over the rough details to erode the painful truth of the uniform he’d worn, the entourage he’d taken, and the rejections he experienced over and over again as word of the banished prince spread. Those six years had passed for Zuko in a cloud of shame and self-loathing; but here, in Katara’s hut, where he didn’t ever have to touch the thorny question of why, the memories seemed less painful to recount. Perhaps it was denial, or perhaps just weak will, but Zuko found that if he pretended he was this other person—just an Earth Kingdom boy with a scar, with no royal title or disappointed father or damaged honour—then it was also possible to ignore the hollow and cold place in his chest where his inner fire no longer burned. It was possible to pretend that he wasn’t in the middle of a mission that would dictate the course of the rest of his life, and to suppress the haunting echo of the ticking clock in his mind—at least while he was awake. His dreams never got any easier; the nightmares were a vivid rush of all the things he managed to forget during the day, always tormenting Zuko with the secrets he kept and jolting him awake just in time to feel his rapidly beating heart undo all the progress Katara had made the day before.

Perhaps she sensed this, because she began to spend more and more time in his room, and was quick to lay a water-covered hand on Zuko’s chest to help calm his racing pulse. Aside from their shared meals and healing sessions, Katara had taken to studying her scrolls or hemming clothing during the lazy hours in between, and Zuko had picked up his own minor habit of watching her work, looking for the charming little furrow of her brow and the way her tongue would stick out of the corner of her mouth when she was particularly engrossed in her task.

It may have continued this way forever, too, but for the fact that just as Zuko was starting to loosen his grip on his destiny, it literally landed back in his lap.

“Is this yours?” Katara asked, dumping the pack at the foot of the bed. Zuko’s eyes widened, and he crept forward to get a closer look, fingers trembling.

Everything was still there. His clothing, his hair ties, even his compass. They had been cleaned and dried, as if they’d never been lost at all.

Zuko felt his mouth go dry. “Where did you find this?”

Katara shrugged. “The storms take and the storms give,” she said. “It turned up half-buried in a bank near the fishing hole.”

Zuko dug into the pack, fingers carefully walking past item after item, until they brushed against the most precious things of all: his dual broadswords. He swallowed, pulling his hand out of the pack without removing them.

What will you do when you face her? the spectre of his father had asked. How will you fight if you can’t bend?

He had known the answer then and he knew the answer now; the solution sat heavy in his lap. He looked back up at Katara, hoping his eyes didn’t betray the emotions flitting through his mind.

“Thank you,” he rasped, and Katara smiled.

“Might be nice for you to have proper clothes that fit again, instead of what I can whip up.”

Zuko nodded numbly. “Yeah,” he replied, gazing back down at his belongings. “Might be nice.”

He felt the bed dip as Katara sat down nearby, and watched her fidget with her fingers out of the corner of his eye.

“Zuko—I want to ask you something.”

The swords. He froze, sweat beading on his brow. He was a fool to think she wouldn’t have seen them; obviously someone had spent time cleaning and drying his belongings, and unless Katara was hiding a full waitstaff somewhere, Zuko knew it had to have been her. He took a deep breath.

“I can explain—”

Katara shook her head. “No, I have a request.” She reached out and took Zuko’s chin in one hand, raising his head so that their eyes met, and he tried in vain to stop himself from trembling.

“What is it?”

Her eyes were huge. “You’re going to recover at some point, and you’re going to leave this place,” she murmured. “And when you do...I want you to take me with you.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko gulped, words rushing to his mouth before his brain could stop them.

“Take me to the waterbender, and I will.”

A flash of hurt crossed Katara’s face. “Oh,” she breathed. “I...I don’t know if I can do that.”

Zuko fiddled with the edge of his pack, shame rising to heat his cheeks. “I need to go to her,” he whispered. “Please.”

But she was already pulling away, already rising off the bed, already shutting him out. “Zuko, there are things—it’s complicated. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

She was gone before he could put together the words to stop her.

Zuko was left alone, staring blankly at the pack in his lap, letting the gravity of its presence seep into his soul. Last time he had seen his belongings, he had been so determined, so focused, so ready . So prepared to kill an innocent human being, in the hope of finally redeeming himself in his father’s eyes. The items seemed like relics of another life, but it was his life, and there was no denying it.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. His quest; his curse; his destiny, however cruel it may be. It was still his, and sooner or later Zuko was going to have to claim it.

With a long sigh, he fell back on the bed, arms spread wide against the quilts. Katara was right; at some point he would be healed, and then he would have to leave this place. And there was a part of Zuko that wanted very badly to take her with him, to show her some of the things he’d described, to see her face light up with joy at the sight of the giant unagi that lived near Kyoshi Island and the majestic heights of the Western Air Temple.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko covered his face with his hands and groaned.

It was going to come down to a choice, and a fairly painful one if he was honest. But wasn’t that the way with all grand destinies? The road always forked, and the paths always beckoned with equal temptation, but in the end you could only ever walk down one.

Behind his hands, Zuko closed his eyes and listened to his heart beat. He knew his path: he was going to recover, walk out that door, and find the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. He was going to cut out her heart and take it back to his father, and then he would be restored to his rightful place and everything would be okay again. He would finally be home, and things would be as they had once been, whether his scar remained or not. That was what he’d been working towards, for nearly a decade now; Caldera was his shining city on the hill, beaming with promise and hope. If only he could get there.

It was probably going to be messy. Zuko knew that. Katara was smart; she would likely guess his intentions, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to convincingly lie. He was going to have to deal with that, somehow, and the taste of metal seeped into his mouth at the thought. Once upon a time, this situation would have been easily resolved; he would have gotten the information he needed, knocked her out, left her for dead, and moved on without a backwards glance. But it didn’t feel right, thinking of it now. It didn’t feel honourable.

What was it that Uncle Iroh had always said? There is no honour to be found in winning with manipulation and betrayal, Prince Zuko.

He sighed. He was still recovering; there was still time to figure out what he was going to do, and maybe even convince Katara that he was trustworthy enough to learn the whereabouts of the waterbender. No matter what happens, I’ll make sure no harm comes to Katara, Zuko promised himself. And if I manage to get out of this alive, if I’m successful in my quest, then I’ll send her enough gold that she’ll be able to travel the world on her own.

Zuko had been dealt his fair share of shoddy Pai Sho tiles in the past, but this one in particular felt like a kick in the gut.

When he eventually drifted off to sleep, he did not dream.

“Zuko. Wake up. She’s here.”

He opened his eyes, blinking into the dark, as the voice of his father faded from his mind. It was late; the lamps had burned themselves out, and only the light of the full moon outside kept Zuko from being completely in the dark. He sat up, heart beating steadily, and furrowed his brow as the feeling in his mind refused to fade. The moon seemed to be calling to him, the dancing Southern Lights throwing the world into eerie shades of blue and purple.

Zuko crept out of bed, walking softly and slowly, drawn to the door like a moth to flame. He rested his hand on the knob for a moment, his heart in his throat, before turning it slowly.

In the weeks he’d spent here, Zuko had never left his room. Katara had dodged his questions about it, promising to show him around when he was strong enough.

As Zuko pulled the door open, he smiled mirthlessly. He seemed strong enough tonight.

Even so, he walked slowly, bracing himself against the wall with one hand. The hallway was dark, but as Zuko’s eyes adjusted, he realized that he’d never seen a Water Tribe hut like this before. The hall was too long, too wide, too pristine. He passed other closed doors—one, then two, then so many more that he lost count, as it became clear that this place was much, much larger than he had first thought. The water vapour from the walls swirled around his feet.

Someone was humming in the distance, a mournful and gentle tune that reverberated through the empty corridors— Katara. He winced as his heart thudded painfully, but pushed forth, step by step, following the sound until he rounded a corner to find himself in a large courtyard. It was full of stone benches and had a huge frozen pond in its center, pristine in the moonlight, dusted with lightly falling snow. And there was Katara in the middle, wearing a beautiful dress, her eyes closed as she hummed to herself, twirling around in a private dance.

What the hell? Zuko blinked and rubbed his eyes, because on second glance the snow wasn’t falling around her; it wasn’t snow at all, but rather individual droplets of water hanging in midair, twinkling like tiny diamonds. And the pond wasn’t frozen; Katara was dancing on the surface of the water, her bare feet kicking up tiny splashes with each step, and the push and pull of her arms—

Zuko felt the blood drain from his face; his knees went out from under him, leaving him sagging against the wall, unable to do anything but look at her, as horror and dread crept up to stick painfully in his throat and his heart pounded against his ribs.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

He watched her lift her arm like a concert composer, and every tiny droplet rose at her command, floating up over their heads until the moon above seemed studded with gems.

Wake up. She’s here.

It was Katara.

Chapter Text

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

This was impossible.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Why? Why ? Why her? How could this be?

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Zuko clamped a hand over his wide-open mouth, trembling all over. His heart was racing, his pulse roaring in his ears.

Close your eyes, he told himself. Try to slow down your h—

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

He couldn’t. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t calm down, couldn’t stop looking at her. Katara’s expression was beatific, her face tilted upwards to the moon, basking in its cool light in the same way that Zuko would turn his face towards the sun. The water droplets twinkled, refracting the Southern Lights, covering the whole courtyard in tiny circles of blue and purple that shifted and swayed with the aurora above. Katara smiled joyfully, her eyes full of wonder, clearly relishing the beauty of it all; she was ethereal, unhurried, bending just for the art of it. As Zuko watched, her grin became mischievous, lower lip caught briefly between her teeth; then, with a flick of her fingers, every droplet exploded into mist. He flinched violently as the spray hit his face, a gasp escaping from between his fingers before he could stop it.

No!

But it was too late; Katara looked over, their eyes locked, and her expression vanished. She took two leaping steps across the surface of the pond before landing on the ground, and Zuko prayed to every god he’d ever heard of to just get moving, please, please just run—

His feet finally got the message and he pushed away from the wall, running as fast as he could, deeper into the depths of the fortress, as Katara called after him:

“Wait! Zuko, please, wait!”

No , he thought as he rounded a corner and ducked through the gap between two absolutely gigantic doors, pushing them shut behind him with a groan. He turned to find himself in a ballroom, bigger than anything the Fire Nation Palace could possibly offer, its ice block parquet floor shimmering in the moonlight. All around him, the water vapour from the walls curled and wafted, reaching out for him with tiny tendrils.

Zuko felt his pulse pounding in his throat, his head spinning and his knees threatening to fold where he stood. He staggered to the wall, leaning on it for support as he pushed himself through each next step, overwhelmed with thoughts of keep going, don’t stop, get out.

“Zuko!” she was still calling for him, chasing him, going to catch him.

His heart was so rapid, every beat echoing through his body, as if his veins were all pulsing along in time with it. He reached the other side of the ballroom and slipped through the first door he saw, into another hallway, which led him to a grand foyer with twin staircases curving up to— a second floor? Agni, is she serious? Doesn’t matter. He scrambled up the stairs, almost on all fours, unable to trust himself to walk without collapsing.

No time. No time. No time. Keep pushing, keep  going, one more step, one more—

“Zuko, please!” Katara cried, closer this time, and at the sound of her voice his focus slipped for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. His knees gave out and he went sprawling across the ice floor, sliding until he hit the wall with a faint thud .

“Zuko?”

He looked up to see her standing at the other end of the hall. As she approached, he pushed himself up on shaking hands, panting from the exertion, as the most curious feeling began to spread through his core. Despite the fact that Zuko was lying on a floor made of solid ice, his limbs weren’t chilly; but his chest felt deeply, profoundly cold, and his heartbeat was sluggish, trudging, slowing— stopping?

Right at that moment, Zuko felt his lungs collapse. He looked down, pawing at his tunic, fingers grazing against skin that was frozen and blue like a corpse.

Every time your heart beats, she’d said. The ice crystals will form.

He gasped for air, trying and failing to fill his lungs, and his vision began to swim as Katara reached him, her hands reflexively flying to her side only to come up empty.

The spirit water, Zuko realized, as his mouth opened and closed like a fish. She doesn’t have it.

And then: I’m going to die here.

She knelt down in front of him, reaching forward; Zuko couldn’t shrink from her hand, so he could only watch as Katara pulled open his tunic, hovered her palm a few inches above his heart, blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, and then closed her hand into a fist and tugged.

Zuko arched off the floor, screaming soundlessly as something in his chest seized and was pulled impossibly tight, as if the very cells themselves had gone rigid. Then the cold feeling began to dissipate; he could suddenly breathe again, his teeth chattering violently, every movement pure agony. Katara’s face filled his field of view, and she cupped his face gently in her hands.

“Breathe,” she whispered. “Slow and easy. And if you feel like passing out, don’t fight it.”

She brings warmth, Zuko thought, and then the pain overwhelmed him and pulled him down into the dark.

When Zuko next opened his eyes, he was in a bedroom—a different one from the place he’d spent the past few weeks. This one was much larger, the bed huge and lush, surrounded by four posters made of ice with draping fabric hung in between. His whole body felt like it had been fed through one of the Fire Nation’s huge wall-destroying drills.

Katara was nearby, curled up on a chaise lounge that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Zuko’s own chambers at the palace in Caldera, but for the fact that it, too, also seemed to be made of ice. She looked asleep, her face illuminated by the moonlight; but upon hearing Zuko stir, she opened her eyes and looked at him as if she’d been waiting for hours. They regarded each other for a while in silence, and then she sighed.  

“You’re an idiot.”

Zuko would have screamed if he had the strength; as it was, he could only gape at her. “Are you fucking serious? ”

Katara scowled. “You can’t go running off like that, all panicked and erratic! Your heart was starting to freeze solid!”

“No thanks to you!”

If glares could cut flesh, Zuko would be ribbons. “I saved you, dummy. Again . You’re welcome, by the way.”

“What did you do to me? With the, um—” he curled his hand into a fist and made a sharp yanking motion.

“I melted the ice crystals,” she replied. “All of them, all at once.”

Zuko groaned as he remembered the awful taut feeling in his heart, and the shift as it vanished all at once; a shudder of pain went through his whole body. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing!” she snapped, jumping to her feet, her voice echoing through the room. “There is nothing wrong with me. And stop yelling; you shouldn’t be exerting yourself, remember?”

“Well you shouldn’t be—” Zuko faltered, then regrouped. “Also, you’re the waterbender?!”

Katara exhaled a shaky breath before nodding. “Yes. I’m the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

There she was. She’d been under his nose the whole time.

Agni. Zuko tipped his head back against the headboard. He should be interrogating her, dragging her back to where he kept his swords, getting the deed over and done with so he could go home. Instead he was sitting here, barely alive, in her house, his life now indebted to her twice over.

She’s close enough to take down and I’ve got the constitution of a wet noodle. Just another day for Prince Zuko, soon-to-be-former-Royal Failure.

Zuko shook his head, clearing the thought before he could dwell any more on it, and fixed his glare back on Katara.

“You lied to me,” he rasped.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Katara replied, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed, either not noticing or not caring when he flinched away from her. “You have to understand, I’m a secret. No one can know who or what I am. All the adventurers who make it this far, I just heal their frostbite and send them back on their way. None of them ever know.”

“Well. The honour is all mine, then, I guess.” Zuko couldn’t keep the bitter edge out of his voice. “So, while we’re being honest: why have you been faking healing me with that spirit water this whole time? Why didn’t you just do this—” he gestured to his chest “—when I first got here?”

“The spirit water is real,” Katara said. “I couldn’t risk using my bending on you, not so obviously; the spirit water makes the process less...abrupt. And I would have continued doing that, but...well. No secrets during an emergency, I suppose.” She looked down, fiddling with the edge of a quilt. “It’s not a permanent fix, by the way. Your heart is still frozen; the ice crystals will come back. I’m working on it. I don’t think there was any damage to the soft tissue of your heart, but I’ll have to check later—”

He was already shaking his head. “No,” he whispered. “No way. I’m not letting you touch me ever again.”

Katara stopped fiddling, her expression unreadable. “So be it,” she murmured.

Zuko scowled. “Really?”

“I’m a healer. I respect your autonomy.”

“Some healer you are,” he grumbled, mostly to himself. “You damn near killed me.”

“Well that wouldn’t have happened if someone had stayed in his room like he was supposed to,” she retorted.

“Well maybe if you hadn’t lied to me from the moment I saw you, I wouldn’t have been suspicious! Ow!” Zuko yelled, as his heart twinged painfully. Katara huffed.

“Would you please calm down? I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll answer your questions.”

He couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow at her. “Oh, so now you’re going to be forthcoming?”

She spread her hands, palms upturned. “I don’t really have a choice, do I? You’re not supposed to know who I am, and you do, so now I have no idea what to do with you.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko had an idea of what to do with her, and at that moment he couldn’t tell if the task seemed especially horrible in light of this new revelation, or whether it had always haunted him and he was in too much pain to pretend otherwise.

I’ll answer your questions. That’s good; he had about a million of them. He always seemed to, with Katara. She created more mysteries than she solved, and it was fucking infuriating. Where to even start?

Zuko squinted. “How come you don’t look a hundred years old?”

Katara chortled. “Because I’m not?”

“...what?” he blinked. “But, I thought—isn’t the last waterbender—how could all the stories exist if you’re so young? What about that story of how you ran away? Of being engaged to someone from the Fire Nation?”

There was a flash of something sorrowful in Katara’s smile. “That all happened,” she replied. “But it didn’t happen to me.”

Why do girls always talk in circles like this? Zuko would have thrown up his hands in frustration, if he could lift his arms. Katara swung her feet up onto the bed, leaning against one of the far posts and crossing her legs at the ankle, and Zuko snorted derisively.

“Making yourself comfortable, aren’t you?”

She gave the facial equivalent of a shrug. “What can I say? I like this room.”

“Well you sure do have a lot of them.”

“Mm. Yes, I suppose I do.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did you build this place?”

Katara shook her head. “No. My grandmother did. Well, my adopted grandmother.”

Zuko blinked. “Your...what?”

Now Katara broke eye contact, her tongue coming out to wet her lips. “The story I told you was true,” she said. “A hundred years ago, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe was promised to a Fire Nation noble. Her name was Unne, and her betrothed was a man named Roku.”

“Roku?!” the word escaped from Zuko’s mouth before he could stop it, and Katara narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“Yeah. You know him or something?”

Fuck, Zuko, will you ever learn to shut your big mouth? He cleared his throat. “I, uh. I’m familiar with the name.”

That raised eyebrow of hers was going to be the death of him. “Learn that from your travels, did you?”

“I had a lot of interest in Fire Nation history,” he replied, because it wasn’t technically a lie. “For a little while, anyway.”

Katara seemed to buy it. “Well. Unne and Roku, they didn’t hate each other; not the way people say, anyhow. It seems that at one point—before Fire Lord Sozin’s war transformed him into a mass murderer—Roku did possess some kindness and empathy. I think he did care for Unne, and she cared for him, but she knew she could never go through with the arrangement. She held a secret that not even the Tribe elders knew; something passed from waterbender to waterbender, and never shared with anyone else. And so, just before the Fire Nation delegation was set to depart, Unne ran. She came here, and she built this place, to shield herself and the ancient secrets of the waterbenders from the rest of the world. But Unne brought with her a brand new secret, too: she was pregnant.”

“Oh,” Zuko said. That was all he could say.

“She gave birth to a daughter, Hama. And for seventy years, the two of them lived here, cut off from the rest of the world. Unne passed down to Hama all of her knowledge.”

“And Hama is your mother?”

There it was again, that flash of sorrow, or perhaps something even harder. “No,” Katara replied, a hair too sharply. “Hama was not my mother. When Unne died, Hama was well past her childbearing years. She was powerful too, maybe even more powerful than Unne. She was able to seek and find power using her mind’s eye, able to pull water out of things you wouldn’t imagine. So she kept tabs on all the Southern Tribes, searching for a baby girl who was a waterbender, and when the opportunity came, she...took it.”

Zuko swallowed the lump in his throat. “Did you know your fami—”

“—I was an infant. I’ve only ever known this,” Katara gestured around them. “Hama raised me, taught me, showed me everything she knew. She died, a few years ago. And I’ve been here alone ever since.”

Zuko’s heart jabbed him again, and he winced.

“Careful,” Katara murmured, coming forward again to sit on the edge of the bed by his leg. “Don’t overdo things.”

“I’m not,” he mumbled.

Her sigh seemed to hold the weight of the entire fortress around them. “So. Now you know what I am. The last waterbender.”

“I suppose I do. And I’m—” Zuko stopped as Katara’s face fell. “What?”

“Leaving.”

He glared. “Pardon?”

Katara looked up to meet his eyes, and he was struck with how vulnerable she looked. “You were going to say that you’re leaving, right?”

Was he? “I—”

“—please don’t go,” she blurted, squeezing her eyes shut as if the words hurt to speak. “Please, Zuko. Please don’t leave.”

It wasn’t the sorrow in her voice that gave him pause; it was the fear. The quiver of her lip, the way her whispers were edged with tears, the wavering tone that gave away just how hard it was speak those words out loud. He swallowed.

Bring me the h—

—oh, shut it, I know. Let me think for a second. He furrowed his brow, trying to reconcile the Katara in his mind—hemming a sleeve, laughing over breakfast, hands steady on his chest—with the inconceivably powerful bender sitting before him, whose death was the key to the rest of his life.

No matter what happens, I’ll make sure no harm comes to Katara, he’d said. Every part of his rational mind screamed that harming her was exactly what he’d have to do, but try as he might Zuko couldn’t summon even a tiny flicker of anger, never mind the homicidal state he’d have to occupy in order to fulfill his destiny.

He was exhausted. It seemed to happen a lot, with Katara around. He had to grant that it was a pretty effective way to extend her own life, even if she didn’t realize it. The revelation of her identity didn’t change the mission; it just made things a whole lot more complicated, and sometime soon—when he didn’t feel like he’d been run over by a tank—Zuko was going to have to ask some horrendously difficult questions. Why had his heart frozen, and not any of the others? What good was his honour if it meant killing a smart and sweet girl like Katara? What good was his honour if it came from killing anyone in cold blood?

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

He could never forget what he saw, but why did part of him wish she hadn’t said it out loud?

Out of all these questions, the mystery why she wanted to keep him around was perhaps the least horrifying to ponder, and the curiosity was just too strong to resist. Zuko sighed.

“Give me one reason to stay.”

“You’ll die if you leave.”

He shook his head. “Not good enough.”

Katara fixed him with a very familiar look of exasperation, and a small part of Zuko wanted to smile even as her glowering intensified.

“That’s not good enough?” she asked, and against his will Zuko’s mouth turned upwards. He bit his lower lip until the urge passed.

“No,” he finally replied, short and sullen.

“...I’ll kill you if you try to leave.” From the quavering in her voice, it was clear that Katara didn’t believe that any more than Zuko did, and now he did smirk.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Her hands clenched and released. “I can heal you.”

“So could another healer. I know some very good ones.”

Katara wrapped her arms around herself, and somehow in that moment seemed younger than her years. “Fine. The truth is…I need your help.”

He laughed, just once. “What could you possibly need from me?”

The light of the full moon streamed in through the window, and Katara turned her head towards it, just as she had in the courtyard. “I draw my power from the moon,” she explained. “I don’t know if you knew that. I don’t know how much you know about waterbending. And—well, you’ve noticed that it’s dark pretty much all the time right now, but it’s not going to remain that way. In a few months, the season is going to change, and the sun will come up, and it will be daytime for half the year; I’ll still have my abilities, but I won’t be as powerful.” She looked back down, shoulders sagging. “Recently I had a vision that a monstrous man would come to this place, and when the sun rose again, he would cut out my heart.”

Oh, Zuko thought. ...oh.

Katara sat up straight again, and wiped an invisible tear from her face. “Anyway. The vision showed me that I can’t defeat this man, not as I am right now. I saw your swords, and I thought...you know how to use weapons, how to take down an enemy the old-fashioned way. I can bend, but I—I don’t think it’s going to be enough. I know it’s a lot to ask, for you to fight a battle that isn’t yours, but...if I can heal your heart, and maybe even your bending, would you stay and help me defeat him?”

Zuko was still too stunned to say a word.

“You don’t have to answer right away. I’m sure you have more questions,” Katara said. “For now, you should rest. You should recover fairly quickly, if you behave.” She stood up from the bed without looking at him, and walked towards the door.

“Wait—” he blurted, and she turned back.

“Yeah?”

A million questions. Always a million questions, with her. Never anything simple. Zuko swallowed.

“Where am I right now?”

At this, Katara’s mouth pulled upward into a half-smile.

“You’re in my bedroom,” she answered cooly, “for the first and last time.”

And then she left, and Zuko was alone.

In his nightmares, Zuko stood at the very bottom of the world and watched the sky brighten, ink black transforming slowly to dark grey, then to blue. He closed his eyes as the first rays of sunlight pierced the horizon line, a blast of warmth hitting his face, like the embrace of an old and beloved friend.

It’s time, he thought to himself, as a knife appeared in his hand. He turned to see Katara standing on the courtyard pond, dancing alone. Her face was serene, her eyes closed, a tiny smile lifting her lips. She would never see it coming.

Zuko took one step towards her, then another; she remained oblivious, occupied instead by the thousands of diamonds that swirled around her, each gem reflecting the beams of the sun at Zuko’s back. She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful.

“She was, wasn’t she?” came a voice, and Zuko looked over to see a man dressed in traditional Fire Nation garb, his beard neatly trimmed and his hands tucked into his sleeves.

What are you talking about? Zuko snarled quietly, careful not to disturb Katara’s dance, even as the man looked over at her.

“Unne. She was beautiful,” the man replied, and with a start Zuko realized where he’d seen the man before:

Roku?

“What will you do, Zuko?” Roku asked, only now it was Zuko’s own voice coming out of his mouth. “What are you going to do?”

Zuko readjusted his grip on the knife. What I came here to do, he answered. He took another step, and his foot plunged into snow that came up to his thigh, pitching him forward. He dropped the knife as he fought to regain balance, and the noise punctured the quiet stillness of the morning and finally got Katara’s attention.

“What’s going on?” she asked, taking two steps across the surface of the pond and leaping down to stand over him, tall and graceful.

Nothing, Zuko said, but as the word echoed around him he felt the sun’s warmth dip, and a chill shot through him as a shadowy figure approached Katara from behind.

“Zuko? Are you okay?” she asked softly, walking over to kneel by him. “Is it your heart?”

There was a blast of heat, and the unmistakable crackle-whoosh as flames surrounded them. The shadow loomed, tall and broad, and chuckled in a leering tone that sent shivers up and down Zuko’s spine.

“Yes, Prince, what about your heart?” Ozai sneered. “More importantly, what about hers?”

Stay away from her! Zuko yelled, but it wasn’t his voice; in the blink of an eye, he was now behind Katara, sneaking up on her, the fire in his veins flowing hotter and stronger than he thought imaginable. Roku lay where Zuko had been just a moment ago, looking up desperately at him.

“Please,” he begged. “Please don’t—”

But Zuko was already reaching out, already plunging the knife into Katara’s chest, already watching the blood stain her dress the rough purple-black of a fresh bruise. He looked up into Katara’s eyes, wide with shock and betrayal, and in her final moments she reached a trembling hand out and gently cupped his cheek—

Zuko opened his eyes slowly this time, lips already pursed, ready to slow his heartbeat, but—

Wait.

He sat up. He was still in Katara’s bedroom; she had lit the lamps at some point, and now the space was bathed in rich warm light. And...and—

Zuko brought a hand to his chest. His heart was beating steadily, calmly, kindly; the details of his nightmare had faded already, leaving only a ghost of the feeling behind, and it, too, was retreating with every breath.

“Was it a good dream, this time?” Katara asked. He turned to see her on the chaise lounge again, dressed back in her casual attire; two trays of food were set on the table nearby.

“No,” Zuko shook his head. “But...this time I feel different.”

Katara grinned. “Good. That’s really good.”

He blinked. “I...yeah. It is. That’s…” he looked back up at her. “Why?”

“Bending,” she answered. “Now that you know I’m a waterbender, I don’t have to limit myself. You’ve made decent progress with the healing sessions, but the ice crystals still form in between, and every time they do, they set you back just a little. So I figured, instead of waiting for them to build up and having to melt them in one session, I can just...prevent them from forming at all. See how your heart does if given a real chance to recover. Your chi, too, maybe.”

Zuko swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, solid and unwavering. He felt stronger than he had in weeks. He felt warm , like the sun was at his back .

“Huh,” was all he could say. “That’s...I guess that is useful. How do you do it?”

Katara tapped the side of her head. “I just have to concentrate a little. A lot of this place is held together by the will of the last waterbender, so it’s not much more work to also concentrate on you. And this way, I don’t have to touch you ever again, if you don’t want me to.”

Zuko couldn’t stop himself from smirking. “Does that mean you’re thinking of me constantly?”

She mirrored his expression. “Maybe. Will you think of me in return?”

“If it means I can feel like this all the time? Sure.”

It was amazing, to be able to just walk over to the table with no wobble in his knees or lightheadedness tipping him over. Zuko sat down in front of one of the bowls of stew, and Katara joined him a moment later, and for a fraction of a second it really seemed like nothing had changed at all.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Except, of course, everything had changed forever.

“So,” Katara said, “have you given any thought to my request?”

What will you do, Zuko? The voice bubbled up from his subconscious, familiar and hauntingly strange all at once. A remnant from his dream, though the speaker’s face was fuzzy in his mind.

What are you going to do?

Zuko didn’t know who was asking, but he shuddered as he felt a phantom hand cup his cheek, like a memory of something that had never happened at all. He exhaled, smooth and slow.

She was beautiful, wasn’t she?

“I can’t defeat this man for you,” he said softly, hiding his wince as Katara’s face fell. “But...I can train you to fight back.”

What will you do, Zuko? Something stupid, that’s what.

It was almost worth it for the way Katara’s face lit up. “Thank you,” she gushed. “So much, Zuko. You have no idea how grateful I am for your help.”

You say that now, he thought, ripping up his roll, unable to eat despite his stomach grumbling. But you’re going to regret it later. And so will I.

He risked a glance back up at her. “So, um, I have a question,” he began, feeling his cheeks get hot as he realized how tentative he sounded.

“Hit me.”

“You said—earlier, when you brought me my pack. You asked me to take you along when I left this place.” Zuko rubbed the back of his neck, which was an old nervous habit, and his fingers jolted ever so slightly to find that the skin back there was just as hot as his face felt.

Katara froze, spoon halfway to her lips. “Oh. Um. Yes.”

“Why? If you’re the waterbender, shouldn’t you want to stay here?”

From the way her shoulders shrank, Zuko could tell that he had touched on something very painful. Katara’s eyes lost their spark, and it was almost like watching a mask click into place. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, too casually. “Forget I said anything.”

“But—”

“—Zuko, please, just...forget it, okay? I shouldn’t have asked you. I don’t want to talk about it.”

He could respect that. He had to, all things considered.

“Okay,” he replied. “We don’t have to talk about it.” If he had his way, they would avoid talking about certain topics for years, maybe forever.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Every second he stayed here, Zuko was betraying Katara. He knew it, and it made him feel worse than dirt. Six years of aimless banishment were going to seem like a cakewalk by comparison.

Katara wiped her mouth with her handkerchief. “Good. And you should eat, your stew will get cold.”  

“Right,” he said, snapping out of his reverie and turning his attention back to his food. The bowl was indeed cool to the touch; Zuko raised a spoonful of stew to his mouth and blew on it by force of habit before swallowing—“ow!”

“What? Don’t tell me you broke a tooth, I soaked those sea prunes for days .”

“No,” Zuko replied around the stew, “it’s just hot, that’s all.” He swallowed, grimacing as the food burned its way down his esophagus, and Katara furrowed her brow.

“Huh, I thought I tested the temperature before I brought them up,” she said. “That’s strange. Must have mistimed things.”

Zuko wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his robe. “It’s okay,” he replied. “I’m—”

Wait.

He barely managed to avoid dropping his spoon, setting it back on the table with a trembling hand as he realized what he’d just done.

“Everything okay?” Katara sounded very far away, and Zuko forced himself to nod.

“Yeah. I’m just not as hungry as I thought, I guess.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ll leave it for you, just in case,” she said, standing up with her own tray. “I’m going to go put this away; I’ll be back, and maybe we can take you to your room again?”

He nodded again, head jerking up and down mechanically as Katara left the room. As soon as the door closed behind her, Zuko jumped out of his chair, sending it clattering to the floor, and he screwed his eyes shut, hands curled into fists so tight that his arms ached.

Come on, he begged, searching deep. I felt you. I swear, I—

He stopped, one hand coming to rest on his sternum.

It was tiny, barely more than an ember, struggling to survive beneath the imposing black and cold. It was too weak to be used, probably too weak to be fed, liable to snuff out instead of catching and growing. It was hardly anything at all, and as Zuko watched, it faded almost completely away. But he swore it was there.

Tears sprang to his eyes, and he let them fall.

Inside, deep in his core, something was burning again.

Chapter Text

When he was eight years old, Zuko climbed up a tree in the Royal Palace gardens and got stuck. His uncle Iroh found him a few hours later; he took one look at the young prince, lip quivering and cheeks still shiny with dried tears, and burst into hearty laughter.

“It’s not funny,” Zuko had protested, feeling even more ashamed than he already did. “And it’s all Lu Ten’s fault.”

“My son? Heavens forbid,” Iroh had replied, as he extended a hand to help Zuko down. “What did he do to get you into this most dire situation?”

Zuko stared at the ground, his cheeks hot from shame. “He and some of the other boys were playing,” he mumbled, “and I wanted to join. But I got stuck and they left me behind.”

Iroh looked up, beaming as the sun reached his face through the leaves. “Ah, but look! You’ve discovered the first mangos of the season!” He pointed up to the space where Zuko had crouched, and sure enough, several of the fruits were hanging just within reach.

“...oh,” Zuko breathed, his stomach grumbling noisily. Iroh raised one eyebrow and knelt down low, so that Zuko could climb onto his shoulders and pluck two mangos for them. It was much less frightening to be up there with Iroh’s steady hands holding his ankles, and Zuko’s mood calmed a little thanks to his uncle’s presence.

Iroh sat down in the shade and began to eat, but Zuko just turned his mango over and over in his hands, trying to quell the new surge of tears threatening to fall.

Beside him, Iroh paused. “What’s the matter, nephew?”

Zuko hung his head in shame. What wasn’t the matter? “I was a coward,” he said, sniffling. “I got scared and couldn’t get out of a situation. I didn’t take notice of what was around me. I’m a bad warrior.”

“Prince Zuko,” Iroh chuckled, “first of all, you shouldn’t worry so much about being a warrior; you’re still a child, and have many years yet before you join our fight. When you do, I have no doubt that you will be the best of us.”

“That’s not what Father says,” Zuko barely whispered, but Iroh had ears like a flutter bat.

“Don’t you mind what my brother says,” Iroh said firmly. “He has no patience, and it clouds his judgment. Mark my words, Prince Zuko: you will one day do great things for the Fire Nation.”

Zuko sighed. “I still got stuck, though.”

Iroh smiled, taking Zuko’s chin and raising his head so they were eye to eye. “Listen to me, Prince Zuko,” he said. “Yes, you got yourself stuck where you did not want to be; but when you look from another angle, you found it was exactly the place where you needed to be.”

Zuko narrowed his left eye. “Because of the mangos?”

Iroh had spread his arms wide. “They’re my favourite fruit, and I get to share them with my favourite nephew! What more could a man ask for?”

Zuko could think of more than a few things, but he smiled anyhow.

It was this memory that came to Zuko’s mind as he stared at Katara, who was holding one of his dao swords as if it were literally on fire. He shifted his grip on his own sword, and watched the blade cast thousands of tiny rainbows as it refracted the light back onto the ice around them. They were in the ballroom; it was just about as large as the training areas that Zuko had used for so many years, back when his training with Swordmaster Piandao had been one of the more beloved jokes among his family. While the notion of a prince training in non-bender combat had raised more than a few eyebrows at the Fire Nation court, swordsmanship was the one thing Zuko had all to himself; his sister had never shown any interest in it, and it had been a singular point of pride that he’d been able to excel at something . He never thought he’d be teaching the last waterbender, but Piandao had said many times that every single student deserved an equal chance to master one of the few truly egalitarian forms of combat that existed in this world.

He had honed his skills by learning to block out the snickering of his sister and her friends; the ballroom, by contrast, was eerily quiet, as the true isolation of the fortress seemed to hang heavy in the air.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko could do it, right now. Katara had literally put the sword in his hand, invited him to attack her—under the pretense of training, of which she had none. She would not know the difference between an exaggerated training strike and a genuine killing blow, not until it was too late. He had the element of surprise on his side, and was a quick hand with the blade.

But.

Zuko’s heart gave a thud in his chest, almost as if it was reminding him. In the past few weeks, he had felt stronger than the whole rest of the time he’d been in Katara’s care; he was able to walk on his own back to his room on the first day, and accepted Katara’s offer of a fortress tour on the second. By the sixth day, he was able to run back and forth across the courtyard—protected from the blistering cold despite being fully exposed—and barely lose more than his breath. Now, a fortnight later, Zuko’s body was feeling strong again, his heart rate steady. With Katara’s bending keeping the ice crystals in check, Zuko was able to do almost everything he’d done before the blizzard— almost. Despite the spark he’d seen, his inner fire remained stubbornly cold, no matter how many times he snapped his fingers. He still suffered from nightmares, snapping awake with a sharp gasp and a chill which would run through him until the moment that Katara woke up. Even though they were at opposite ends of the fortress, if Zuko woke up first, he could always tell; there would be that shift in his chest, the undeniable feeling of solid becoming liquid—far less violent than the first time, but always strange—as Katara melted whatever had frozen overnight as they both slept. It was a daily reminder of just how close to death he remained, despite his recovery. Every heartbeat echoed the truth: if Katara stopped living, then so would he.

And so here he was, facing his opponent with his sword already drawn, and instead of taking her down, he was going to teach her how to fight back.

You got yourself stuck where you did not want to be, Uncle Iroh had said. If only he knew.

Katara’s mouth was in a thin line, her shoulders hovering somewhere near her ears; the hand that held the sword was clenching so tightly that Zuko could see the trembling of her fingers even from a few feet away. She cleared her throat.

“So,” Katara eyed the sword in her hand, “uh. Is this thing really necessary?”

“Yes, it is,” Zuko bristled back, only a little bit incensed at the insult to his beloved weapons. “And you’re holding it all wrong.”

“I’m holding it like a normal person!”

He rolled his eyes. “No, you’re not. You’re acting like the sword is going to turn around and attack you at any moment. You’ll never make it through the first parry, with a grip like that.”

Katara’s lower lip stuck out just a little when she pouted, he’d noticed. “I hate weapons,” she sighed. “They’re all so ugly.”

This earned her a bewildered squint. “You’ve never seen a fight! How could you say it’s ugly?”

“I don’t need to see something to know the truth.”

Zuko wondered if it would count towards his destiny if he killed her just for being so difficult. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat.

Now Katara had the audacity to smile, just a little, out of the corner of her mouth. “Sure I do. I have a big library, you saw it. Lots of scrolls about battles in there. I’ve read them all.”

“You’re—that’s not—oh, screw it. Give that to me,” Zuko jutted his chin at the sword, holding out his hand. Katara carefully dropped the hilt into his palm, pulling her fingers back before their hands could touch.

Zuko took several long steps backward, and settled into a ready stance. “Bend me something to hit.”

She obliged, summoning three disks of ice that she sent spinning towards him in quick succession. Zuko sliced the first and second with his left and right swords, and then brought the blades together for a final overhead strike to split the third cleanly in half; as he did, he saw Katara’s hands fly to her mouth, her gasp audible even from across the ballroom.

Despite himself, he smirked.

“See? The sword needs to be an extension of your arm,” he recited Piandao’s favourite lesson. “If you treat your weapon as an adversary, then the only person you’ll defeat is yourself.”

Katara raised her eyebrow. “Did you learn that from a fancy swordmaster?”

“I did, actually. The best in the world.”

“Really. And what else did he teach you?”

Zuko raised his eyebrow right back. “That students should be quiet, and listen to their teachers.”

“I’ve never been a very good student,” Katara replied, folding her arms across her chest.

“So I noticed,” he grumbled, walking back towards her. “Now would you shut up a minute and let me show you how it’s done? Here.” He pushed one of his swords into Katara’s hands, and turned so that they stood side to side. “Your grip should be firm, but not clenching; that’s muscle energy that could be going outward, and you’re wasting it by holding the sword too tightly. Your wrist should be steady, but not rigid. Keep a light bend in it.”

Katara’s brow furrowed, but she followed his instructions. When Zuko was satisfied with her stance, he crossed back to stand in front of her, bringing his sword up to meet hers with a clink . She flinched at the sound, her wrist going limp almost instantly.

Zuko didn’t even bother to try and mask his frustrated sigh. “Katara. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. He was starting to lose track of how many times he’d betrayed his mission, how many layers of lies he’d already told. One more was a mere drop in the bucket.

Katara fixed her grip, and when her eyes flicked up to meet his Zuko was suddenly struck with just how close they were.

“Okay,” she said, “so what now?”

Zuko pulled his blade along hers, making an elongated shhhhhink sound, but this time she stood her ground. Good.

“Bring your arm up, and strike me. I’ll block it, and then attack you in turn, and you’ll block me. A basic parry exercise. Combat is like a dance; every move you make will affect your partner, and vice versa.”

Now Katara shrugged. “If you say so. I’ve never done it.”

“Done what?”

The tops of her cheeks blushed light pink. “Danced. With someone, I mean. Another lesson for another day, perhaps.”

Zuko snorted. “Yeah, and then maybe I’ll summon some magic ostrich-horsemen and whisk you off to the ball.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that dancing is already useless in a city full of people,” he shrugged. “It’d be even more useless down here, where you’re all alone. I don’t even know why you have this ballroom, anyway.”

“Would you prefer that I melt it?” Katara asked, an edge creeping into her voice.

Zuko shook his head at her, bewildered. “Are all Water Tribe people so passive-aggressive?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met any others,” came the response, and Zuko could swear that the temperature of the room dropped by a few degrees.

“Whatever,” he said, lifting his sword again. “Just, get ready. And remember: every movement it makes should be connected to your core. Like bending.”

Katara pulled a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. “Bending is much easier,” she grumbled, and as if to prove it she flicked her hand and summoned three more disks of ice out of thin air. Zuko watched as she made them hover, smoothly spinning around her body, and in that moment he missed his own firebending so much that it was almost physically painful. He inhaled shakily around the lump in his throat.

“You’re right,” he finally managed to croak. “Bending is much easier, in combat. That’s why learning the sword is important.”

At this Katara scoffed. “Why? The Fire Nation isn’t going to care how fancy your swordwork is when they can just mow you down with a storm of fire.”

She wasn’t wrong, and Zuko shifted his grip on his sword to avoid wincing. “There are—battle is complex. You’d be surprised what one man with some swords can do. Each of us must rely on the most powerful weapon we have at our disposal; in your case, it’s your waterbending. But when those fail, the smartest of us will know another way.”

Outside, the winds howled, like a theatrical chorus: We took your fire from you. You didn’t deserve its light.  

Katara was shaking her head. “This was a bad idea,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t do this.”

Zuko felt his lip lift in a frustrated sneer. “Why? We haven’t even begun.”

“I know what you’re going to ask of me, and I can’t do it,” she replied. Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Katara, I’m only going to say this once,” he gritted his teeth. “You are a powerful bender, and you will be a formidable opponent in a fight. But you have to actually fight .”

She jutted her chin out defiantly. “I’m a healer. I’ve sworn to nurture and protect the secrets of my people. Attacking you seems—wrong.”

“Of course it’s wrong,” Zuko replied. “But you need to be ready. We’ll start with the swords, and then move on to your waterbending at—at some point.”

Katara shook her head again. “I will never use my waterbending to harm another human being,” she proclaimed, and Zuko had to bite his lip to conceal the rictus grin that threatened to spread across his face.

“That’s ridiculous,” he retorted. “In the heat of a fight, your bending is the most reliable, powerful, and accessible weapon at your disposal.”

Katara raised her eyebrow. “And how would you know?”

Zuko’s jaw dropped, as did his sword arm. “Are you serious?”

Katara threw up her free hand in exasperation. “ You don’t have to deal with this! You don’t have to worry about all the horrible things people expect you to do. You’re not a b—”

Zuko’s heart skipped a beat, and he watched her eyes widen at the same moment as she realized what she’d said.

“Zuko—”

“Y’know what? Never mind,” he heard himself snarl, and he stalked past her, leaving trails through the ever-present mist.

“What about your sword?” he heard Katara ask, her voice faint through the haze of anguish and fury building in his mind.

“Keep it!” he yelled back, slamming the ballroom door closed behind him and taking off in the direction of his bedroom.

How would you know? The question stung him all the way to his core. The way she’d been so flippant about it, so casual. The way it hadn’t even occurred to her. The way she’d forgotten .

In Katara’s mind, Zuko wasn’t a bender.

Because you’re not , his mind whispered. You may never be one again. You haven’t been able to bend anything in the past month. You’ve based your assumptions on one hot spoonful of stew.  

He barrelled into his bedroom, shutting the door and leaning back against it, his heart in his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut and snapped his fingers, searching for the ember he’d seen so briefly.

Come on, Zuko pleaded. Come on. Please.

Snap.

He thought he could feel a small spark, but it could just as easily be a figment of his desperate imagination.

Snap .

Nothing.

Snap.

Nothing.

Zuko let out an infuriated groan. Where are you?!

Snap.

He rolled his shoulders back, closing his eyes and breathing in deep through his nose, planting his feet on the floor, pulling himself back into a memory.

“You can do it, Prince Zuko. You just need patience.”

Uncle Iroh’s chambers were dark, so he likely couldn’t see the frustration in Zuko’s eyes.

“I can’t do it,” he sulked. “I’m no good.”

Iroh chuckled. “Zuko, you have the spark inside of you,” he replied. “I promise you do.”

Don’t sniff, Zuko told himself, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “What if you’re wrong?”

“The Fire Lord line has always been full of good, strong firebenders. It’s part of how they are able to act as head of our nation, to make the decisions when the heat is highest and the risks are great. I have seen many firebenders who were just like you, and they turned out to be more than capable in the end. It just takes time.”

Zuko huffed. More than capable wasn’t anywhere good enough. “Azula was able to do this before she could write,” he mumbled.

“Azula is a prodigy, this is true,” his uncle conceded. “But that doesn’t mean that you are without talent or skill, young Prince. We all come into our own at different times.”

Zuko wasn’t sure that was true, but he didn’t argue any further. Instead he snapped his fingers, and a spark briefly flashed to life before fizzling away.

“Summoning your inner fire is not unlike using a flint to start a fire by hand,” Iroh said. “The energy is there, inside of you. It’s waiting to flow; it wants to burn. You must provide that initial ignition point, pushing the energy to a point of no return.”

“How am I supposed to do all of that at the same time?” Zuko grumbled, and Iroh chuckled.

“Your energy is always there,  Prince Zuko. It flows through all benders, no matter their element. The ancient Avatar was said to be able to control all of the elements at once; he was the world’s reminder that the four nations are not separate at all, but merely parts of the same whole.”

Zuko gave him a quizzical look. “Of course there are four nations,” he retorted. “Otherwise wouldn’t we just be at war with ourselves?”

Iroh’s eyes danced with merriment. “Yes, I suppose we would,” he replied. “Now, Prince Zuko, why don’t you try one more time? I feel an overwhelming need for some tea, and perhaps some of those sticky rice cakes your mother is so fond of. I say we light this candle, and then go bring some to her.”

Zuko felt a smile creeping across his face, and he took a deep breath.

Snap—

—Zzzzpop!

“Ow!” Zuko’s eyes flew open just in time to see the spark at the end of his fingers disappear with a poof , leaving the acrid smell of smoke in its wake. The hair on the back of his arms was all standing on end.

Zuko frowned, sliding down to sit on the ground with his back to the door. This wasn’t like anything he’d ever experienced before, even during his childhood training years. The spark had never felt this...heavy. For some reason he thought of wood that was too wet to catch alight.

“Zuko? What happened?” Katara’s voice came from the other side of the door.

Oh for Agni’s sake, can’t she leave me alone for one minute? He held his breath, hoping she would think he’d gone elsewhere, but her knocking merely increased.

“I know you’re in there. What’s going on?”

Zuko gulped, shaking his hand until the faint sensation of buzzing energy dissipated.

“Nothing,” he barked back through the door. “Leave me alone.” To my failure.

“You can’t stay in there forever!”

“Wanna bet?” Zuko snapped, and in response the ice bricks around him trembled all at once, so violently that they should have fallen, but instead remained in place.

“I control this whole fortress with my mind ,” Katara retorted. “Somehow you keep forgetting that.”

Zuko punched the wall next to him, watching the vapour poof up and resettle. “Yes, I’m very aware of your abilities,” he sneered. “I get it. You’re special. Your medal of recognition is on its way.”

He heard a rustle of clothes, and realized that Katara was sitting down too, back to back with him, separated by the door. For a moment they were both silent, then:

“I knew this was a bad idea,” she said.

Zuko huffed, but couldn’t bring himself to disagree. He was more than familiar with bad ideas; his entire life was marked with one humiliating bad idea after another, and it was always the same. The same twisting knot in his gut, the same stab of cold anxiety in his chest, and the same outcome, every time: Zuko, alone, shut out from the world, exiled like the outcast he’d always been and always would be. It didn’t matter whether he was in the Fire Nation palace or at the very end of the world. None of it mattered.

“I’m sorry,” Katara murmured. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he growled.

“I haven’t been treating you fairly,” she continued. “You are a bender, even if your chi is blocked, and I shouldn’t be ignoring that.”

“You can say that again,” Zuko mumbled, mostly to himself.

Katara sighed. “I’m…I’m used to being alone. I’m used to being the only person who can do what I do, and when I do interact with outsiders, it’s always been as Katara the healer. People talk to me about the last waterbender as if she’s a mythical creature, something alien and inhuman. A monster.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko scrunched his eyes closed.

“My waterbending is...frightening,” Katara said, and Zuko scoffed silently. “It’s something that is more important than who I am, what I want. It’s a burden.”

“I don’t know how you can say that,” he snapped back. “At least you have your bending. You’re not—you’re not broken .”

Katara’s laugh was entirely devoid of humour, but it set Zuko’s blood boiling anyway. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“So you find me funny, then,” he spat. “Great. Thanks.”

“Of course I don’t,” came the equally snappish reply. “You know that, Zuko, don’t be dense.”

Don’t cry, he begged himself, taking several deep breaths until he was pretty sure he wouldn’t break down. “You have no idea what it’s like to lose this,” his voice came out in a thick whisper.

He imagined Katara’s thin-lipped smirk, the one she made when things weren’t funny at all. “If I could switch places with you, believe me, I would.”

“Don’t say that!” Zuko was on his feet now, whirling around to face the door. “Don’t ever, ever say that. Don’t ever take your bending for granted. Don’t you dare.” His fist was raised, ready to pound the ice for emphasis, but he sighed and pressed his palm against the door instead.

There was a beat of silence, and then:

“This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

He swallowed. “More than you’ll ever know.”

The knob turned, just a little, and then spun back, as if Katara had thought the better of it. “Can you tell me why?”

Zuko had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the audacity of the request; instead he sighed, shoulders heavy as he leaned his forehead against the door and closed his eyes again.

“Where I come from, bending is...complicated. It’s something we’re very proud of. I wasn’t very good at it, when I was little. My father hated me for that, I think.”

“That’s awful,” Katara murmured.

Zuko nodded, eyes still closed. It was easier, somehow, to speak when she wasn’t staring at him. “I worked very hard to get better at it,” he said. “I was determined to prove myself to my father, to show him that I deserved to stand by his side. And now—” he clenched his hand into a fist, nails digging sharply into his palm. “Now I’m nothing.”  

All he could hear was his own heartbeat. One. Two. Three. Four.

“For what it’s worth,” Katara finally said, “I don’t think you’re nothing.”

Zuko opened his eyes and saw the doorknob. Without letting himself think, he reached for it, grasped it, turned it. When he pulled the door open, Katara was standing there, cheeks dusted with pink from running, sword still hanging limply from her right hand. Icicle stalagmites peppered the floor around her, and Zuko felt a flash of tenderness; she had a habit of making them when she was fretting.

She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful.

He sighed. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I will know if you lie,” Zuko felt the muscle in his jaw twitch, his heart thudding painfully in time with it as he forced the words out of his mouth. “Is my bending ever coming back?”

Katara remained steady, meeting his eye without flinching. “Your chi is still blocked, but your heart is getting better,” she said. “I think it’s going to take time, but I’m hopeful.”

Zuko made a noncommittal noise. Hopeful was the kind of word he would always hear in Azula’s voice; sneering, judgemental, laughing at the very thought of such naivete. But that’s the kind of person Katara was; she radiated hope and optimism at every turn. It made him profoundly uncomfortable; he’d always treated hopefulness as a weak man’s trait. But he couldn’t deny that Katara, despite her irritatingly upbeat tendencies, wasn’t weak at all. Far from it.

“We made a deal,” he finally said. “Your healing for my help.”

A nod. “Yes.”

“I will hold up my end of that bargain, but you need to meet me halfway. I’m not asking you to trust me, but you have to keep an open mind. Combat is not easy, and it’s not fun. But it might save—” he swallowed. “It might save your life, in the end.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

To his utter horror, Katara smiled. “I trust you.”

He exhaled sharply, looking down at the floor, lips pursed. “I don’t know why,” he muttered, even though he knew he shouldn’t. The weight of his lie was so crushing; admitting even part of it, however abstractly, made the pressure on his chest seem a little bit lighter.

Katara’s shoes stepped into view, and when Zuko looked up to meet her gaze, his heart skipped a beat.  Her blue eyes were so intense, faceted, deep enough that he thought he might drown if he looked too long. She held her hand out, hovering over his heart, but never touching; and for a moment Zuko wanted to lean into her, to connect, to feel the cool, calm energy she exuded as easily as breathing.  

“I can feel your heart, Zuko,” Katara said. “I feel it all the time, at every waking moment. It’s a good heart.”

It’s really not, he didn’t say. Couldn’t say. Didn’t want to say.

“That’s very kind of you,” he managed to mutter. “I hope to one day see what you see in it.”

That raised eyebrow was going to be the death of him, never mind the smirk. For a second Katara looked downright wicked, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Don’t worry,” she replied. “You will.”

In his dreams, Zuko sat on the Fire Nation throne. His face was relaxed, unmarred, human. The beating of his heart sounded like a heavy war drum, striking a steady and heavy rhythm that reverberated through his entire body, leaving his limbs loose and relaxed. His smile was small, but genuine.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” a female voice murmured in his ear, her breath warm on his neck. Zuko closed his eyes.

Yes, he whispered, and a thrill rippled up and down his core.

“You did it,” the woman said, moving behind him to his other side, her lips grazing the edge of his jaw. “I always knew you could.” There was something familiar about her voice; it was low and husky, but there was a golden warmth to her tone that was unmistakable.

Katara.

She slithered onto his lap, wearing a beautiful blue dress that was studded with gems that seemed to shift with her every movement. Her hair was loose, cascading down past her shoulders in gentle thick curls, and Zuko reached up and ran his hand through it, marveling at the softness between his fingers.

I told you I had a destiny, he murmured, and Katara grinned impishly.

“And I told you , destiny is incredibly cruel,” she purred back.

Is this cruel? Zuko’s voice echoed even as his lips found the skin of her throat. Is this so wrong?

“That depends. What did you do to fulfill this destiny?” Katara’s voice hitched in the most delicious way, and Zuko’s pulse skipped a beat at the sound.  

You know what I did, he whispered thickly, one hand sliding up her thigh. Katara gasped.

“Was it worth it?” she breathed, and before Zuko could answer she grabbed him by the hair and pulled his lips to meet hers—

Zuko shook awake, gasping as a pleasurable shudder went through him. He was hard, throbbing with desire, even as shame and embarrassment flooded his mind as the dream lingered.

“Zuko?”

He jumped at the sound of Katara saying his name, pulling the blankets up over his lap to cover his embarrassment just as she opened the door.

“What?” he said, trying desperately to sound normal. Katara was flushed, breathing hard, as if she’d run all the way to his door. It was hideously distracting.

“I thought you might be in trouble,” she said. “Your heart was beating really fast. Is everything okay?”

Zuko nodded curtly. “Yes. I’m fine. It’s all fine. No problem here,” he stammered.

Katara furrowed her brow. “Are you sure?”

“ Yes, ” Zuko’s voice hinted at a plea, but she seemed to buy it, and when his door finally shut in place he collapsed back against the pillows and let out the breath he’d been holding.

Katara. Of all people.

Agni help him, he really was at the very end of the earth.

Chapter Text

“Do it again.”

Katara huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Zuko, do we really need to—”

“—again ,” he snarled, raising his dao sword and pointedly waiting for her to assume the defensive stance they were working on.

“Fine," Katara snapped as she planted her feet and bent her knees. “You’re the worst teacher, did you know that?”

“Well, you’re the worst student,” Zuko shot back, “so we’re perfect for each other.”

He could see Katara’s jaw twitch, but instead of replying she just inhaled slowly and nodded her readiness. Zuko wasted no time, swinging his sword down, waiting and watching for the clang as Katara’s blade met his own.

“Good,” he muttered as they circled each other. “Now do the deflecting twist—”

But her wrists still weren’t steady enough, and what should have yanked Zuko’s sword from his hand instead merely resulted in the swords getting tangled with each other. Katara abruptly dropped her blade and stepped back, leaving Zuko to catch it just before it hit the floor.

He groaned as he straightened. “Stop doing that,” he grumbled. “It’s bad for the metal. Also you’re not doing what I told you.”

“Sorry,” Katara replied sullenly, even though she very plainly wasn’t. “This is…hard.”

Zuko took a moment to look at her. The Katara he’d come to know didn’t say things like “this is hard”; she didn’t give up, and she didn’t fold in the face of a challenge. She was keeping him alive by sheer force of will, for Agni’s sake; the entire fortress around them seemed to exist entirely due to the stubborn pout of her lower lip and the determined glint in her eye. Katara was one of the most infuriating people Zuko had ever met, and everything about her screamed that she could accomplish anything she put her mind to. But put her in the training arena, and she transformed into a timid and avoidant creature—someone who Zuko found miserably frustrating and who Katara clearly loathed.

As Zuko watched, Katara absently twitched her fingers, pulling icicle stalagmites up from the floor and flattening them back into smooth parquet tiles a moment later. The extent of her power could easily boggle the mind; she made it all look so easy, too, a fact which brought Zuko all sorts of grief. He’d spent his whole life training, honing his firebending, and every moment had been a trial. But Katara’s nimble hands flowed as smoothly as the water she worked with; she was fundamentally at home in her element, connected to it so strongly that it was more than second nature. Zuko wondered, not for the first time, how she would be in true combat—not with a blade, but with her bending.

Zuko was an idiot about a lot of things, but he was sure of this: Katara would never be a swordsman of any merit, and certainly not enough of one to survive in a fight. And she was, perhaps deliberately, ignoring the solution that lay right at her fingertips.

He sighed. “Are you seriously telling me that your mother—Hana?—she never taught you any waterbending combat skills?”

Katara’s nostrils flared, and she stepped back. “It’s Hama, and she wasn’t my mother,” she replied. “And she tried, once, but I—” something dark crossed her face, and for a moment she was almost unrecognizable, entombed in grief and shame and secrets too horrible to speak out loud. Zuko knew that facial expression all too well, and knew how long the moment must have felt to her; but in the end, it wasn’t much more than a second before Katara shrugged. “Well. It didn’t go as she wanted. I wasn’t a very good student in that regard.”

Zuko released the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “It’s hard, to learn from a parent,” he replied, which earned him an exasperated look. “Or parental figure. Whatever. Point is, they’re—not always the best teachers, but—”

You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher. It had been years, but Zuko could still hear his father’s voice in his head. He could still feel his heart pounding as the panic rose in his throat, as he realized that this was real, that it was happening, that his life was about to change forever and all he could do was watch the fire descend—

“—Zuko?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

Katara was watching him with that look in her eye again, as if Zuko was some kind of fascinating puzzle she was in the middle of solving. It made her look radiant, and it made the back of his neck itch.

“You were saying, parents aren’t always the best teachers, but…” she prompted.

“But,” Zuko forced himself to continue, “that doesn’t mean that the lessons they wanted to teach weren’t worth learning.”

A bitter truth, but a truth nonetheless. For Zuko had indeed learned respect, and suffering had indeed taught him well. He’d proven as much, upon his return to Caldera, and his father had rewarded him with a way home. Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Zuko felt the muscle in his jaw twitch. I’m trying, he imagined answering. I need more time.

Katara took a few steps closer, her blue eyes shining in the lamplight. “And what did your parents teach you?”

“They taught me how to use my bending to defend myself,” Zuko replied, because it wasn’t technically a lie.

“I can’t do that.”

You can, and you should, he thought, but there was no point in saying it. Katara was stubborn when she set her mind to something, and Agni himself probably couldn’t change her mind. It was one of the things that made the last waterbender so aggravating, so fascinating, so special. But she was ignoring her potential, and it was driving Zuko a little bit insane.

You’re so weak, whispered the voice in his mind that sounded like his father. Why make things more difficult for yourself in the future? If you teach her to actually fight back, she might win.

He swallowed a wave of revulsion at the thought, but he couldn’t deny that it was right. The logical thing to do was to keep going as they had, to let Katara think she was sparring with an ally, to maintain the upper hand. That’s what his father would do.

But it didn’t feel right. Zuko couldn’t imagine his uncle Iroh doing such a thing. In fact, Iroh would probably tell him to come clean about everything and walk away empty-handed.

“Katara.”

She reached out and took her blade back, falling back into her starting stance. “What is it?”

Say it. Tell her she should be waterbending. Warn her. Give her a fighting chance.

But Zuko just lifted his sword. “Never mind,” he said. “Let’s go again, from the top.”

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Snap. Snap. Sn—

“Could you stop doing that?”

Zuko forced his hand into the pocket of his robe. “Sorry,” he muttered, and Katara flashed him a quick smirk.

“Rude,” she said, as her gaze returned to her scroll. “Thought a strapping young man such as yourself would know how to comport himself in a library, considering all the travels you’ve done.”

“I wasn’t being—I know how to act in a library!” the protest flew out of Zuko’s mouth before he could stop himself, and he watched with dread as Katara arched her eyebrow and looked back up at him over her scroll, her smirk even more prominent now.

“You know I’m kidding, right?”

Zuko shrank into his chair and grabbed the book closest to him. “Yes,” he grunted, as he opened to a random page and very pointedly did not look at her again.

“What is it that you were doing, anyway?”

“Nothing!” Zuko answered, too quickly. He cleared his throat. “Just—snapping my fingers. Nervous habit.”

“Why? Are you nervous around me?” there was a giggle in Katara’s voice that made Zuko itch, and he fought to put a proper scowl on his face.

“Of course not,” he scoffed.

“Good. Because as your healer, it’s important that you remember: I have seen you naked.”

Zuko’s face felt like it might actually burst into flame, and he swallowed a huge lump in his throat. “Very funny,” he managed to retort. “Your bedside manner continues to be the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Katara’s grin only widened. “You’re most welcome to request a new healer, though you’ll be waiting a very long time.”

“Lots of paperwork?”

“Mhm. The commute’s nothing to sneeze at, either.”

Zuko snorted with laughter, his hand reflexively flying to his face to cover his smile. Katara laughed too, and a small part of him wondered how he could get her to do it again.

Katara had abandoned her scroll now, and was watching him instead, chin cradled in hand. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he replied without thinking.

A slight blush crept across the top of Katara’s cheeks. “Are you betrothed, back home?”

Zuko’s mouth went dry. “No,” he croaked. “I’m not. Thanks for reminding me.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. “I just…I don’t know. I guess I feel like I don’t know very much about you.”

That’s because everything I’ve told you has been a lie, Zuko didn’t say. Instead, he shrugged. “I’m nothing much.”

Katara shook her head. “I don’t think that’s true,” she murmured. “You’re seriously telling me there was no one in your life, before you came here?”

Zuko studied the table surface. “There was someone, when I was younger,” he said. “She was my sister’s friend. I think everyone expected us to get together, eventually.”

“Did you like her?”

He blinked. “I suppose I did. We didn’t spend a lot of time together, before…” he faltered, the words sticking in his throat, choking him.

But Katara figured it out anyway; her hand moved towards Zuko’s face, but she pulled back before he could flinch away.

“Did she really dump you because of what happened?”

The table grain continued to be fascinating, or at least that’s what Zuko told himself. “Not exactly,” he replied. “We were never really together, before it happened. And after…afterwards I went away. I haven’t seen her since.”

“I’m sorry,” Katara said softly, and Zuko looked up to see her eyes shining with something that looked suspiciously like tears. He shook his head.

“Don’t be. She deserves someone better. Someone without…well. Someone who belongs at fancy society functions.”

“And that’s not you?”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to return home. Would anyone be waiting for him? Would anyone really welcome him? Or would they turn their backs, having learned in his absence that life was better without him?

Without thinking, he snapped his fingers, and swore he felt a spark against his skin.

“I don’t know,” he said. “When I’m finished my mission—when I can go home—it’s going to be…different. It’s been a very long time since I saw her. I don’t know what she’d think of me.”

Katara smiled. “If she’s smart, she’ll think you’re a royal pain,” she teased. “But she’ll stay anyway.”

Zuko realized he was looking at her again, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away this time. “Why should she?” he breathed.

“Because you deserve someone who loves you,” came the reply. “Everyone does.”

In his nightmares, Zuko was standing in the fortress courtyard, watching in awe as Katara danced in the moonlight, snow following the trails of her fingertips so that it seemed as if she was bending the night itself.

She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. This time Zuko said it out loud, listening to the way the words rolled off his tongue, how the sounds felt in his mouth, examining the shape that the task took in his mind. He adjusted the knife in his hand.

I know what you’re about to say, he murmured, as he felt Roku come to stand by his side.

Roku arched an eyebrow. “Do you really?”

Yes, Zuko nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from Katara’s splendor. You’re going to plead with me not to do it.

“Maybe,” Roku replied, his voice casual and pensive, as if they were discussing the ins and outs of some obscure fire sage philosophy instead of Zuko’s destiny. “Why do you think I’m going to ask you that?”

Zuko’s brow furrowed, and he turned to look at Roku. You did, before.

“I don’t recall that. Are you sure it was me?”

Of course it was you, Zuko scoffed. Who else would it be?

Roku was looking at Katara now, but she wasn’t there anymore; there was another woman dancing in her place. She was taller than Katara, broader in the shoulders, with a wide nose and round lips. There was a wide streak of white in her hair.

“Unne.” Roku said her name like a prayer, and his lips turned upwards in a tiny, private smile. It was the smile of a man entranced, completely under the spell of his beloved, unable to hide it and equally incapable of understanding why he even would. Zuko felt a sharp pain in his chest.

It’s not her, he tried to say. Unne is gone.

Roku’s smile only grew. “She lives,” he replied, as if it were that simple. “She lives because the secret lives.” At this he took Zuko by the elbow, turning him so that they were face to face, and Zuko flinched. Roku’s eyes were the same clear gold colour as his own, and for a moment Zuko felt as if he was glancing into a mirror, seeing the man he could have been. He gritted his teeth, fighting off the urge to look away.

“Why are you here, Zuko?” Roku’s voice sounded so similar that Zuko felt the words leave his own lips like a shadow.

To fulfill my destiny, he replied.

“And what is your destiny?”

To cut out the heart of the last waterbender and bring it to my father. Zuko frowned at the edge of bitterness that snuck into his voice, and Roku’s eyes narrowed.

“The waterbender had a destiny, once,” he said.

Yes. I know.

“No you don’t,” Roku shook his head. “I was like you, you know. Arrogant, desperate for praise, eager to become a cog in the Fire Nation’s bloodthirsty machine. I thought I knew my destiny, but I didn’t. I was a fool.”

Zuko felt himself sneer. You know nothing about me! he snapped.

Roku’s eyes narrowed. “I know that you feel chained to your destiny,” he replied with steel in his voice. “I know that everyone deserves someone who loves them. I know that you think your father knows what is best for you.”

He does!

“So he knew best when he did that to you?” Roku’s eyes flicked to Zuko’s scar. “Your face—”

Zuko’s anger exploded, and he moved his arm faster than his brain could follow, thrusting forward with the knife, desperate to stop whatever words were going to come next. The blade made contact, its trajectory slowed to a sickening pace as it struck and pierced flesh, and Zuko heard a sharp gasp that was horrifyingly familiar—

Katara?

Her eyes were wide, mournful, almost disappointed as she looked down at the knife hilt protruding from her chest. Zuko stepped back, his heart plunging to his toes, and a deep deathly chill began to spread through him.

Katara, he said. I—I didn’t mean to—

But he had. Of course he had. This was his mission, his destiny, his chance to become the man he was always supposed to be.

She reached out and gently cupped his cheek in her hand, her thumb whispering over the scar tissue beneath his eye, and against his will Zuko leaned into the touch, unable to swallow around the lump in his throat that was made of the words I’m sorry.

“Zuko,” Katara whispered, and her voice seemed to howl like the wind around them. “Was—” she coughed up blood, staining her pretty lips blackish red, and before he could stop himself Zuko was tilting his head forwards, pressing his lips to hers too briefly, so he could feel her next words against his rapidly freezing skin:

“Was it worth it?”

And then the light faded from her eyes, and the sky above cracked open and began to fall in giant sharp shards—

“—Katara—” Zuko snapped awake, her name already leaving his lips. His heart thudded in his chest, erratic but strong.

She was alive. His heart would be frozen if she wasn’t.

Just a nightmare, Zuko told himself, wiping his sweat-soaked palm on the sheets.

When Katara had first appeared in his dreams, Zuko had dismissed it as mere utility. His mind had conjured up a female figure, and supplied a familiar face to match—nothing more, nothing less. But lately, his nightmares had taken on a very different shape, and the fear he felt was starting to transform, too. Zuko was prepared to have nightmares about his quest; he’d had nothing but nightmares for most of his life. People who looked like him didn’t have pleasant dreams; he wore his suffering on his face, and it never stopped teaching him, not even in sleep. But these recent dreams were different; they felt more vivid, more real, more horrifying. There was a stronger sense of helplessness, of trying desperately to correct a ship that was on course for disaster.

As he stood up and drifted to the table, Zuko massaged his temples with a soft groan. He wanted nothing more than to go back to bed, but he knew he wouldn’t have much time before Katara came to get him for breakfast. This was the only time he had to practice, and he had to make the most of it.

The candle in front of him was rough, made of wax that had been bought or traded many decades ago, melted and re-melted over and over to conserve it for as long as possible. It was a grimy grey-yellow colour, its wick rough and frayed where a dull knife had pulled at it. When Zuko’s match caught the strands, they each flared up with a tiny flame, burning down until they combined into one.

He stared into the light, feeling the warmth on his skin. He breathed: in, out. He imagined his root, strong and sturdy, drilling down and down and down through the miles of ice until it could grip the fire at the heart of the earth itself.

“You can do this,” Zuko whispered to himself, and he brought his palm up and across the fire. He stilled himself, forcing his fingers to remain steady, and when he pulled his hand away there was a tiny flame sitting in his palm.

Zuko exhaled slowly, trying to slow his heart rate as he watched the flame flicker and wave. Grow , he commanded, and for a moment it seemed to obey, crawling over the skin of his hand by hair-widths. He felt himself grinning.

He was holding a flame. It wasn’t much—in fact, it was barely anything at all—but it was better than nothing. Zuko cringed at the thought of his father finding out; it would be fittingly humiliating. At twenty years old, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation was starting all over again, his firebending barely more capable than a toddler’s.

It’s about what I deserve, he thought, so the voice of his father wouldn’t have to. His muscles were beginning to cramp up from being held so rigidly, and Katara would be here soon—

As soon as Zuko’s attention shifted, the flame vanished with a poof , leaving a small angry burn in his place. Shock waves shot up his arm; he hissed in pain, cradling his hand, his thumb grazing over the reddened skin. He sat back, tilting his head against the wall as a bead of sweat trickled down his neck, and closed his eyes as the waves of despair began to crash over him—horrifyingly familiar but no easier to bear.

“Zuko?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin as Katara appeared in his field of view.

“How long have you been standing there?” he snapped.

“…not long? It’s—we’re supposed to train, but—” Katara cut herself off, and Zuko followed her eye line to his injured hand, still cradled against his chest. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. I’m fine.” Zuko could hear the flimsiness in his lies, but he couldn’t seem to stop his mouth from moving. Being around Katara was a constant exercise in real-time humiliation, like when he was nine and drank too much rosewine and insisted on recreating Love Amongst the Dragons as a one-prince show in front of his mother’s entire court.

Katara didn’t even stop to give him her exasperated look; she pulled up the other chair, sitting with her knees hovering on either side of Zuko’s legs. “May I see?”

Zuko knew it wasn’t really a question, and he held his hand out to her.

“Hmm,” she raised her eyebrow as she pulled some water from the skin at her hip. Katara hovered her hand above Zuko’s, and the water flowed down her palm to envelop the burn, glowing faintly as her power flowed through it. When she recalled the water, Zuko pulled his hand back to see that the skin was perfect, supple, pale and smooth. He blinked, and the scar tissue around his left eye felt tight and hot.

“So,” Katara said, sitting back, “are you going to tell me why you’re wasting one of my candles when there’s a perfectly good fire in your hearth, and how you managed to be so clumsy with it?”

“Do I have to?” Zuko mumbled under his breath, suddenly unable to meet her gaze. He watched Katara’s lips twitch as she made a decision.

“Alright,” she said, climbing to her feet. “Come on. No training today.”

She led him through the fortress, turning down new hallways and up circular staircases. Zuko lost track of their path very quickly; he was busy swallowing the ridiculous nervous flutter that was whispering through him as he watched Katara tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and he didn’t notice exactly where they were going until she pushed open a plain-looking door and flashed him a wicked grin.

Zuko couldn’t suppress his gasp as he stepped out beside her. They were at the very top of the fortress, in a domed room made entirely of perfectly clear ice. The moon was nowhere to be seen, and the sky was alight with thousands of stars. But they were a mere backdrop for the dramatic artistry of the Southern Lights, as great streaks of teal blue and eerie green and bright pink glowed and shifted overhead, rippling through the night like plumes of flame. Zuko felt his jaw drop as he turned around and around, trying to take in every detail.

He heard Katara giggle as she sat on the floor. “Do you like it? Come, sit.”

“It’s...wow,” Zuko croaked, unable to tear his eyes away, his neck craned to take in as much as possible. He joined her, lying back to stare upwards so that the sky filled his entire field of view. The lights arced and lept, as playful as the baby turtleducks in the palace gardens where Zuko had grown up. The colours bled into each other and then pulled themselves apart, and tendrils of light were flung out into the darkness and retracted just as quickly. Blue, purple, red, orange, white, green—there seemed to be no limit to the combinations. The night was silent, and Zuko could feel his heartbeat thudding out a rhythm that almost seemed to match the twinkle of the stars.

“Have you seen them before?” Katara asked, her voice languid and calm.

Zuko nodded. “Yes, but...never like this. They’re—” he glanced over to see the stars reflected in Katara’s blue eyes, a smile of pure joy lifting her lips, and he gulped. “They’re beautiful.” Too late, he realized he was still staring at her, and snapped his attention back to the show overhead.

Katara sighed contentedly. “This is one of my favourite places in the whole fortress,” she said. “The stargazing alone is pretty spectacular, but the lights...they’re something special.”

They are, Zuko silently agreed, stealing another glance at Katara’s face. Had her eyelashes always been that long?

“I’ve read that at the North Pole, the lights aren’t like this,” she was saying. “They’re much dimmer.”

Zuko nodded, even though she probably couldn’t see it. “They’re still grand,” he replied, “but they tend to hang in the air—a sailor I knew once called them curtains of light.” He narrowed his eyes. The lights reminded him of something, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Sounds boring,” Katara quipped. “These are far more dramatic. Though I don’t think they were always this way.”

“Oh?” Trying to sneak glances at her without moving his head was starting to give Zuko a headache.

Katara lazily swept her hand along as the lights bowed and swayed. “There are a few scrolls in the library from members of the Southern Water Tribe, back before the war. There aren’t a lot of details, but the Southern Lights used to be much more subtle, like the ones up north. After the Fire Nation delegation left, and after Unne disappeared, the lights began to get brighter. More colours, more shapes, more movement.”

“Do you think Unne was bending them?”

This earned him a chortle. “I wish. The lights aren’t water; they flow and shift like liquid, but they’re bright like fire. No one really knows what they are. Certainly no one can control them; I imagine the Southern Water Tribe would be far more famous for their light shows, if we could.”

Zuko blinked as the connection finally came to him. “They look like the plumes at a firebending show,” he said.

Katara hummed. “I’ll have to take your word for it.” Her tone was carefully neutral, but something about it stuck in Zuko’s craw, and he frowned.

“You’ve seriously never been outside this fortress? Not once, in your whole life? Didn’t you need to get supplies?”

“No.”

“You never went to any of the villages to heal?”

This was answered only with silence, and Zuko’s frown deepened as he was struck with a memory.

You’re going to recover at some point, and you’re going to leave this place, she’d said. And when you do...I want you to take me with you.

The request already felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. Katara had been so vulnerable when she asked, and Zuko had been hot-headed and arrogant and singularly focused on his goal. And then, after he’d discovered her identity, she had changed her mind.

So many questions. Always a million questions, with Katara. Never anything simple. Never anything that made sense—not without learning a whole new slate of secrets, or crafting a whole new pack of lies. Zuko narrowed his good eye, blurring the lights above into a vague shifting mass. What changed? Why didn’t—

“—you can’t leave,” he blurted.

Katara sat up, shoulders hunched, and wrapped her arms around her knees. Zuko’s heart twinged with anxiety as he watched her curl into herself, and he sat up too, reaching out to touch her shoulder before thinking the better of it. Her body language wasn’t that of shock, or guilt, or even surprise. Zuko hadn’t caught her in a lie; no, he’d done something far worse than that. He had spoken a bitter and painful truth.

Eventually Katara straightened, and she turned to face him. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that,” she said. “Have we run out of conversational topics so quickly, that we need to break into the locked boxes at the back of the larder?” Her eyes flicked to his scar and then returned, slowly enough that her meaning was clear.

In any other context, such a motion would have sent Zuko into a rage, but he was too curious to care. “You know how I got my scar,” he retorted, because it wasn’t technically a lie, “so I get to learn one thing about you that you don’t want to talk about.”

Katara scoffed. “I don’t know how you got your scar, Zuko. Remember? You asked me not to talk about it, and I listened. Unlike some people.”

“I got it because of the Fire Nation,” Zuko replied. “You know that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ooh, a burn scar was inflicted by people who can bend fire. Yes, I’ve truly come to understand one of your innermost demons. How brave of you to tell me such a secret.”

Zuko felt his lip curl in a snarl. “I’ll have you know, my—” he stopped.

He’d nearly said my father gave this to me.

But he couldn’t; Katara didn’t know who he truly was. As far as she knew, Zuko was an Earth Kingdom boy from Ba Sing Se, and this version of himself definitely didn’t have a father who was a firebender. This version of Zuko had a father who didn’t think he was a failure; he had a mother who had never disappeared, and a sister who didn’t torture him at every opportunity. This version of Zuko hadn’t spent six years wandering the earth with no purpose, barely keeping his head above the depression that had threatened to drown him. This Zuko wasn’t the laughingstock of his entire country, wasn’t outcast and loathed and despised and dismissed. This Zuko had never heard the words bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

This version of Zuko shouldn’t have a scar at all.

But he did, because at the end of the day he was still just Zuko the Exiled Prince, and it was never going to go away.

He finally sighed. “Fine. This scar—” he pointed to it, fingertip hovering above the rippled red skin, but never ever touching— “This is my fault.”

From the look on her face, Katara didn’t believe him. “How was that?”

Zuko swallowed. “I made a mistake, and I was punished for it.”

“Is that so?” Katara’s neutral voice was starting to become an obvious sign for things are not neutral at all, actually, and Zuko had to suppress a tiny smile at the absurdity of it all.

“Yes,” he said. “I was given explicit instructions, I disobeyed, and when presented with the opportunity to defend my honour, I failed. It was my fault.”

This, at least, he could say honestly. Lately, all the lies had started to leave a bitter taste on his tongue.

The silence stretched for agonizing seconds, and the Southern Lights seemed to explode like fireworks all around them. Eventually Katara exhaled.

“Okay,” she muttered. “You’ve said something about your secret. Do you really need to know about mine?”

He arched his good eyebrow. “It’s only fair.”

Katara’s eyes never left his face, and Zuko fought to avoid shrinking back from her gaze, until she finally sighed.

“No. I can’t leave the fortress.”

“But you want to.”

“No.”

“Then why did you ask me to take you away?”

Katara made a fist, and a spike of ice shot out from the wall, whizzing between them with violent speed to crash into the opposite side of the dome, where it shattered into pieces and disappeared. Then she huffed.

“Because I’m a coward. There. Are you happy?”

Zuko shook his head. “Not good enough.”

“Yes it is.”

“Ooh, a Water Tribe girl refuses to leave her little igloo and face the real world,” he mimicked her. “Yes, I’ve truly come to understand one of your great burdens, Katara. Thank you for telli—”

“—Fine,” she spat. “I can’t leave because there’s something here that I need to protect, and I’m the only one who can do it. I’m trapped here for the rest of my life, I’m doomed to be alone, and this will all probably die with me anyway, because I’m not—” Katara cut herself off, but the rage and hurt in her eyes remained, just long enough to break Zuko’s heart.

“You’re not what?” His voice was softer than he expected.

Katara bit her lip. “I told you that the waterbender had a destiny,” she said. “And I won’t fulfill it. I can’t be that cruel. I just can’t. So I’m stuck, and when the sun rises again, even if I don’t die, it won’t matter.” She wiped away a tear.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Zuko wanted to wrap her up in his arms. He wanted to run his hand through her hair, to tilt his forehead against hers, to trail his fingers in the divot of her collarbone. But instead he reached out and touched her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what? It’s not your fault,” Katara’s tone was bristling, but she didn’t pull away; her thumb absently caressed the skin of Zuko’s hand, sending electric shocks up his arm.

It is my fault, Zuko couldn’t say. His chest felt tight, like someone was sitting on it. He looked up, but the Southern Lights had faded, and the twinkling stars seemed to mock him.

“I guess I’m sorry I asked,” he finally replied. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

Katara smiled softly, looking down at their hands. “Can I tell you another secret?”

Zuko nodded, and reminded himself to breathe.

“I know that you didn’t want to end up here,” Katara said. “I know that you miss your bending, and you want to get back to your life. But...it’s been nice, having you here. It gets lonely, being by myself all the time.”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. The truth was overwhelming him, crawling up his throat, threatening to explode out and ruin everything. Zuko’s limbs were tingling as his mind whispered tell her the truth, tell her the truth, tell her the truth, but instead he tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. Katara squeaked in surprise, but she didn’t pull away, and Zuko’s heart beat so hard he was sure it would crack open his ribcage. He took one breath, inhaling the scent of her hair, before he let go and stood up.

“Thank you for showing me this place,” he blurted, and pretended not to notice the blush that crept across Katara’s cheeks and the tip of her nose.

Katara stood up too, wiping away some imaginary dirt from her thighs. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “You can come up here anytime you like. You don’t have to invite me, but I certainly don’t mind watching the Lights whenever I can.”

Zuko’s face felt hot. No, scratch that—his whole body felt hot. He followed her back downstairs in numb silence, his mind overwhelmed with an odd buzzing energy. When he arrived back at his room, he sat down at the table and lit the candle, his arms trembling, and passed his hand across the fire, pulling back a healthy flame that burned contentedly in his palm.

Breathe. In, out. Zuko exhaled slowly, lips pursed away from the fire, and closed his middle finger and thumb overtop of the flame and—

Snap.

The fire ballooned outwards, nearly consuming his whole palm, before vanishing with a whoosh a split second later. Zuko was left staring at the unblemished skin of his hand, his heart fluttering so rapidly it made him feel faint.

He’d done it. He’d bent fire. He was healing.

“Katara!” he cried. “I—”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

And just like that, Zuko’s rising elation hit its zenith and began a treacherous free-fall; the energy in his limbs coalesced into a lump of dread at the base of his throat.

“Zuko?”

“Nothing!” he yelled back. “Never mind!”

“Okay!”

With a heavy sigh, Zuko blew out the candle and buried his head in his arms, watching as the creeping water vapour swirled across the table surface. You should be happy about this, he told himself. But he wasn’t.

Being isolated in constant darkness was surely driving him mad, making him do and think all sorts of odd things. It was making his skin crawl, highlighting all the spots where Katara had been pressed against him, squeezing his heart smaller and smaller so that it beat against his ribs like a captured wild animal. His mission seemed to become more and more abstract with each passing day. With every moment Zuko spent with Katara, the fortress seemed more and more like home, a fact which only made him more homesick. It was all getting just a little bit too complicated for Zuko’s liking.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

He sat up, leaning his head back against the ice-covered wall. Obviously he wasn’t back to his old self yet, but things were progressing fast—or at least that’s how it felt. Too fast, even.

It’s been nice, having you here. She’d said it with such kindness, such openness, such love.

Zuko set his mouth in a thin line. He didn’t need to act, not just yet. Katara was still healing his heart, and he should wait until she finished.

He refused to acknowledge the tiny piece of himself that relaxed at the thought of putting off his destiny for the indeterminate future. The tiny piece that was relieved he didn’t have to kill anyone yet.

The tiny piece that, if he was honest, relished being with Katara for just a little while longer.

Chapter Text

“You want to do what?!”

Katara had an impressively casual expression on her face, for a woman who had clearly lost her mind. “I want to teach you waterbending forms,” she said again, and Zuko raked his hand through his hair.

“For heaven's sake, why?”

“Because I think it might help you.”

Maybe it was just a Water Tribe thing, to be able to spout complete nonsense while keeping a straight face. That was the only possible explanation. Zuko folded his arms.

“You know I’m not a waterbender, right?”

Katara smacked his arm playfully. “Of course, silly. But your chi’s still blocked, right? And waterbending forms are the only forms I know, so, I don’t know, they might knock something loose.”

Zuko opened his mouth to protest, and then clamped it shut again, biting off the rebuke at the tip of his tongue all about how his chi was doing just fine, thank you. Because Katara couldn’t know about his firebending yet. If he had his druthers, she’d never know at all.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

“Come on, Zuko,” Katara was saying, stepping out into the middle of the ballroom. “Stand beside me.”

He obeyed with only a cursory bit of reluctance for appearances’ sake, and imitated Katara as she raised her arms and began a simple push and pull motion, back and forth, shifting her body weight as she moved.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a beginner form,” Katara explained. “It just creates little waves, if you’ve got water in front of you. Which, now that I think of it…” she flicked her fingers, and a section of the floor in front of them melted into a puddle. The water shifted in time with Katara’s motions; and as much as he tried to imitate her, Zuko couldn’t help but frown as his body protested the unfamiliar movements.  

“This is pointless,” he grumbled. “I’m not a waterbender, and I’m not going to improve by doing waterbending forms.”

Katara smirked. “Are you always this stubborn?”

“No. I just know when things aren’t going to work.”

“That’s what you said about my healing powers when we first met, and look, you’re more of a pest than ever.”

Zuko scoffed. “You’re one to talk.”

Now Katara turned to him, hands on her hips. “Excuse me? What are you implying?” Her words conveyed the irritation that had become so familiar by now, but there was an undeniable teasing edge to her voice, and Zuko bit the inside of his lips in an ultimately futile attempt to keep himself from smiling.

“I’m not implying,” he managed to retort. “I’m telling you, this is pointless.”

Katara shook her head. “It’s not pointless.”

“Yes it is.”

“Would you just—humour me, at least? I’ll make it worth your while.”

If Zuko didn’t know better, he’d swear that she was pouting a little more dramatically than usual. Still, he heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

They began again, moving back and forth, and against his better judgement Zuko found that the rhythm, combined with the steady flow of the water in front of them, was having a hypnotic effect. His shoulders relaxed, the tension dissipating and leaving a curious feeling of emptiness behind; and even though he knew that Katara was actually the one doing all the work, there was a small comfort to be found in imagining that he was bending something, even if it was just a small puddle of ice water.

“There,” she murmured with a grin. “That’s better, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be half-bad at waterbending, you know.”

Zuko had no idea how to respond to that, so he just scowled. “Thanks, I guess?”

But he couldn’t take the compliment for what it was; hypnotic or not, waterbending felt too loose, too malleable, too uncontrolled. Zuko longed to do some firebending forms, even if no fire actually came of it; the movements lay dormant in his muscle memory, itching to be awakened. He hid one hand behind his back, clenching a fist so he wouldn’t snap his fingers.

Katara’s smile widened. “Now that you’ve indulged me, I have a present for you.” She re-froze the floor and crossed over to the far table, where they’d abandoned Zuko’s dao swords an hour before. As soon as her back was turned, Zuko pushed his hands down by his side, his stance wide and feet firmly planted. I’ll show you not-half-bad at bending, he thought.

Whoosh.

His jaw dropped open as a small spurt of fire erupted from his palms, vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving a smear of ash on his trousers and melting part of the floor away. Zuko yelped in surprise, jumping back, staring at his hands in wonder and terror.

Really? Now?! he silently rebuked his inner spark. Are you trying to get me killed?

“Zuko?”

“What?” he snapped, too quickly. Katara gave him a quizzical look.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Sorry. I’m fine.”

Katara seemed to buy it, and Zuko began to offer a silent prayer of thanks to Agni for somehow carrying him through all these hideously flimsy lies—until her eyes found the melted spot on the ballroom floor.

“What on earth—”

“—I think you missed a spot,” Zuko blurted, his face burning; but Katara just chuckled, flicking her fingers and instantly reforming the floor as if nothing had happened.

“Maybe,” she replied teasingly, “or maybe you’re really a waterbender after all. In which case I guess you wouldn’t need these, but—here.” She was holding a small drawstring bag, which she upturned, and five or six small stones fell into Zuko’s outstretched hands.

He blinked. The stones were clean but rough, probably broken off of a much larger boulder. There was nothing written on them, and they weren’t uniform enough to be any type of currency. He turned them over in his hands; there was no sparkle to indicate a precious metal or crystal inside, just the universal dull grey of rocks that could have come from literally anywhere.

“Oh,” Zuko said. “Um.”

Katara was watching him with the oddest expression on her face, as if she was expecting something more, and Zuko fought to avoid shrinking under her gaze.

It was always a million questions, with Katara, though he had to admit that why did you give me a handful of rocks was a new one.

“I thought you could practice,” she said gently, and realization dawned on Zuko like an entire sack of rocks. I’m from Ba Sing Se, he’d said. Of course she’d put two and two together.

“I—I didn’t think you’d remember,” he managed to sputter. “That—thank you, Katara. Really.”

When she smiled, Zuko thought of the sun warming his face. “Of course,” she replied. “They weren’t easy to find, but if you think your abilities are coming back, then you should at least have some way to know. Now you will.”

For a heartstopping second, Zuko wanted to tell her everything: that he’d been lying, that he wasn’t who she thought he was, that this gesture had both touched and horrified him in a way that an earthbending boy from Ba Sing Se could never even imagine possible. But instead he just swallowed around the lump in his throat, and shoved the creeping sense of dread as far down as he possibly could.

“I’ll do my best,” he managed to say, and Katara reached forward, tracing around the pile of stones in his hand before covering them with her own, her fingers grazing the skin of his wrist.

“That’s all you need to do,” she replied. “No matter what, Zuko, your best is always good enough.”

And for a moment, for just a heartbeat, for a fraction of a breath, Zuko let himself imagine it was true.

In his nightmares, the South Pole was bathed in darkness, the sky uniformly black. The stars had gathered around Katara, following the sweep of her hand as she danced, illuminating her from every side with an otherworldly glow. As Zuko watched, the stars began to change colour, shifting like the Southern Lights as they obeyed Katara’s every command. He looked down at the knife in his hand, and watched the reflection of the colours—a constantly moving rainbow cast on the metal.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

This time Zuko didn’t say it out loud; he heard the words in his father’s voice, thudding out in time with the beat of his heart. He looked out to the horizon, but the sky remained dark. There was no hint of sunshine, no shimmering mirage of Caldera hovering tantalizingly within reach. There was just Katara, dancing; she was the waterbender, and she was beautiful.

Zuko looked back down at the knife, which he held so tightly that his fingers were trembling. And yet he felt no effort—it was as if he and the knife had merged, as if it was stuck in his hand for the rest of time.

And then, a voice said: “Fulfill your destiny, Zuko.”

He jerked his head up, searching desperately for the source of the sound, but he wasn’t in his own body anymore; he was on the other side of the courtyard, watching himself watch Katara. The knife had transformed into a dao sword, and Zuko—or whoever he was possessing—was stalking forward with the silent efficiency of a trained and merciless killer.

Katara! he tried to cry, but his mouth refused to open. She must have heard something anyway, because she turned towards him, and the stars fell to the ground as her eyes widened in fear.

“Zuko—”

He was already raising the sword, already swinging it towards her, already aiming for her chest. She jumped back, just barely missing the blade, and summoned a great wave of water that towered over their heads—but then it stopped, hovering in place, as Katara stood still and said: “Please. Don’t do this.”

What are you doing? Zuko wanted to yell. Don’t stop! Keep going! You have to—

But it was too late; there was a horrifying wet sound as the sword sank into her chest. At the very same moment, Zuko was yanked back into his own body; he watched as Katara crumpled to the ground, scattering stars in her wake. He scrambled to reach her, hands shaking, begging in whispers: Why didn’t you fight back enough? Why didn’t you want to live? Why didn’t you stop me?

Katara had no answer; the light had already faded from her eyes. Zuko pulled her into his arms, burying his face into her hair, pressing her head against his chest as if he could transfer his own heartbeat into her body.

There was a guttural howling noise, and Zuko looked up just in time to get a glimpse the creature he had possessed. It looked down at him with eyes made of white-hot fire; then there was a horrifying blast of sound and heat that obliterated everything else, and Katara’s body dissolved into ash as Zuko saw the flames descending—  

He bolted upright, hand flying to cover his face, waiting for a strike that never came; his whole body was trembling as adrenaline coursed through every vein, and a deep cold began to take root in his chest. Zuko screwed his eyes shut and forced himself to breathe deep and slow, willing his heart to stop racing before it did permanent damage.

Please, Katara, he silently begged. Please wake up.

And, as if she’d heard his plea, Zuko felt the shift in his chest, and nearly collapsed with relief as the awful tension pulling at his heart relaxed and flowed away. He sat back against the headboard, fisting his hands into his hair.

Zuko’s nightmares were never pleasant, but he’d come to understand what to expect from them. He knew that his nightly tortures were the result of his building guilt—of his mind processing the fundamental dissonance between his actions and his intentions. Zuko had ignored it for as long as he could, but the fact was that the more time he spent with Katara, the more nightmarish his mission became.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Until now, part of him had held out hope that his nightmares were a secret advantage, that perhaps his mind was conjuring every possible iteration of Katara’s death so it would be easier to do it for real when the time came. That maybe being forced to live it over and over again was some kind of test, created by the part of Zuko that was as strong and merciless and decisive as his father wanted him to be.

But this dream had been different. This time, Zuko had begged Katara to fight back—and this time, he’d wanted her to win. This time, he’d mourned her, overcome with despair at the sight of her body. This time, there was a monster hunting him.

Zuko shuddered. While he remembered the fight with Katara, he had only seen a brief flash of the thing standing over them. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember anything but the vague outline of a man, and then a huge blast of fire that looked just like—

The scar tissue around his eye seemed to pulse, hot and aching. It hadn’t hurt like this since just after the Agni Kai, while the skin had still been healing.

(“You’re lucky to keep your eye,” the healer had said. “It’s frankly a miracle.”)

Zuko pulled air into his lungs and then pushed it out, again and again, until he no longer felt like he was drowning. Find your root, he told himself, the voice of his uncle Iroh echoing in his mind. He snapped his fingers, but there was no spark to be found today, and he was almost relieved.

Why didn’t you fight back enough? Why didn’t you want to live? Why didn’t you stop me?

Katara was expecting him in the ballroom for training; he had to pull himself together. Zuko slipped into the bathing nook adjacent to his bedroom and scrubbed his face with icy water, letting the cold wash away the last bits of sleep from his mind. As he pulled on his tunic, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the small mirror Katara kept propped up in the corner.

The months at the South Pole—and Zuko was fairly sure it had been months, though it was difficult to keep track—had made him pale, but not sickly; his face was still angular and thin, but his cheeks were no longer hollow and gaunt from exhaustion and stress. His hair was long enough that it had started falling into his eyes, but Zuko hadn’t bothered to cut it; down here it didn’t really matter whether or not he was breaking Fire Nation protocol. Besides, he thought, the Phoenix tail had made him look stern, pulling his face into a scowl more often than not, and there was something about being around Katara that made him want to be softer, kinder— weaker.

Zuko sighed, setting the mirror face down on its shelf. That was precisely the problem, wasn’t it? He was letting his emotions cloud his judgement, as he always did; and all it was doing was making his life harder, as his father always told him it would. Because the most frightening thing about his nightmare wasn’t the being made of fire, or even the sight of Katara bleeding out onto the snow; it was that Zuko had been thrilled when it seemed like she was going to fight back.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Zuko had made two promises which were fundamentally at odds with each other. On the one hand, he was destined to cut out the waterbender’s heart, bring it to his father, and reclaim his life; on the other, he had sworn that no harm would come to Katara. If Zuko killed her in cold blood, he might return home, but his honour would remain here, frozen at the South Pole, and he would never be able to forget it. The only way out of his predicament was if Katara was ready; if she fought back, faced him in a fair battle, and if he bested her. That was the only option, but Katara kept dragging her feet, and they were running out of time.

One way or another, Zuko knew, he was going to have to show Katara the power she was denying to herself, before it was too late.

The clang of the dao swords echoed through the ballroom, rebounding off the high walls and coming back whole seconds later, as if the fortress was an immensely haunted battlefield whose ghosts could never give up the fight that had slain them.

Zuko watched Katara smirk as she sidestepped his attack, turning to counter it the way he’d shown her; he feinted left and then went right, knocking the blade from her hand. They stopped as the sword clattered to the floor, the echoes fading into silence as they caught their breaths.

“This isn’t going too badly, is it?” Katara asked, and Zuko pursed his lips in thought.

“You’re getting faster,” he replied, “but you’re still too stiff.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll get there. I’m doing much better than I was a few weeks ago, can’t you focus on that?”

“Excessive praise just makes you complacent,” Zuko recited, ignoring the scoffing noise she made. “And these drills aren’t actual combat. Combat is like—”

“—a dance, I know,” Katara blew a strand of hair away from her face. “And, again, that reference is largely lost on me. Unless you want to show me what you mean?”

It wasn’t the first time she had asked, and Zuko opened his mouth to say no as he always did , but instead he sighed.

“Fine,” he said with mock sullenness, accepting the sword from her so he could sheathe them, setting them on the floor out of the way. He held out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Katara took it. Her palms were warm and dry.

“Put your other hand on my shoulder,” Zuko instructed, as his hand tentatively rested in between her shoulderblades. He swallowed. “Now, when I step forward, you step back. I’ll lead.”

Katara looked skeptical, but she nodded, and Zuko began a basic waltz: one-two-three, one-two-three. It only took a couple of moments before she caught on, her footsteps becoming surer, matching his pace and rhythm.

“This isn’t so hard,” she said, and Zuko smirked.

“That’s because I’m going easy on you,” he retorted, spinning her out and pulling her back in, this time much much closer. Katara’s arms erupted with goosebumps, and his smirk became a full-blown grin. “I could do much more.”

Katara laughed, easy and light. “I never would have taken you for a dancer, Zuko.”

“Why’s that?” He twirled her under his arm.

“Let’s just say that your temperament suggests a far different life than one filled with fancy dances.”

“Oh, I’ve been to a few dinner parties before,” he replied. “They’re very boring.”

Katara’s eyes were sparkling in the lamplight. “Is that so?”

“Yes. The food was good, though. I do miss the food. No offense.” Zuko dipped her, just a little; Katara squealed with delight, and he felt something warm stir in his core, a sense of spark and catch and flame.

“None taken, I suppose,” she replied. “I’m sure the dance partners were much better there.”

Zuko nodded. “Much less annoying, too,” he said, and Katara laughed. Heat crept up the back of his neck.

They danced in silence for a few moments, leaving trails through the mist as they went, and Zuko watched the blush grow across the top of Katara’s cheeks before she spoke.

“I suppose there’d be music, too,” she murmured.

“Yes, usually a live quartet, at minimum.”

“Really?”

Zuko let his eyes unfocus, watching as the lamps became blobs of fuzzy yellow and white light, and tried to imagine that he was back in Caldera, at one of the palace balls. He didn’t realize he was humming until he felt the tickle of sound in his throat, but Katara’s smile widened when she heard it, so he kept going, louder now, and began leading her through the more formal steps of the dance that accompanied the tune.

“What’s this?” Katara asked.

“I can’t answer and hum at the same time,” Zuko mumbled.

“I grant you a musical reprieve while you explain.”

He scoffed playfully as they circled each other, palms pressed together. “And—turn. Good. This is one of the dances from the F—from where I live.”

“Oh?” she grinned as he resumed humming, leading her through a more complicated section, their arms intertwining and pulling apart again.

Zuko kept humming, responding with only a wink. They finished another spin, his hand landing on the small of her back, where he let it stay as he searched her face for any sign of reluctance. But there was no such hesitation—just the glittering blue of Katara’s eyes, the lush fullness of her lips, the smile that lit up her whole face.

“Got anything harder than this? I’m bored.”

“Oh are you really?” Zuko grinned. “Well, you asked for it.” And with that he swept her around dramatically, almost lifting Katara off her feet, relishing her squeal of delight as they picked up pace. He turned them around and around, creating miniature vortexes of mist in the void left behind by their footsteps. Katara kept up, but only barely, her eyes sparkling with wonder as Zuko spun her out and then pulled her back, their bodies getting closer and closer each time. As he watched Katara catch on to the steps, her eyes glinting in that specific way they did when she was determined to beat him at something, Zuko wondered if perhaps this was why people liked dancing.  

The waltz was coming to its end, and Zuko wrapped his arm around Katara’s waist, pulled her tightly to him—unable to miss the hitch of her breath as he did—and dipped her low. Katara cried out in surprise as her legs went out from under her, forcing Zuko to grab the top of her thigh to keep them both from toppling over.

“I’ve got you,” he heard himself breathe, making an executive decision to avoid thinking about how close their bodies were pressed together.

Katara giggled, letting her head hang back for a moment. When she looked back up, they were all but nose to nose; and suddenly the air felt thick and time seemed to stop as Zuko watched her watch him, her eyes roaming from his brow to his scar to land on his lips.

There was so much he wanted to say in that moment, so many things itching to slip out, so many truths he couldn’t bear to hide any longer. There were so many memories haunting him, so many nightmares where he’d watched her die, so many times he’d snapped awake in a cold sweat as dread shuddered through him. Zuko opened his mouth, heart pounding as he did.

“Attack me with waterbending,” is what he said.

It took Katara a second to register the words, and she cocked her head to the side, still smiling. “What?”

Zuko pulled her back up and let her go with only a small surge of reluctance. “Attack me with waterbending,” he repeated. “You can do it, Katara. I know you can.”

Her eyes were still sparkling. “Are—are you serious?”

“Yes,” he said as he retrieved his dao swords from the side of the room. “Please, just humour me. Think of it like a dance.” He stepped back and gave the swords a twirl.

Katara still looked immensely skeptical, but after a moment she and nodded. “Okay. Here goes.” Her stance went wide, knees bent, and she summoned a long stream of water, forming it into a whip. Zuko watched her sling it towards him in agonizing slow motion, and he stepped out of its way with barely any effort. He made a face.

“Okay, attack me a little harder than that.”

The next attempt was marginally stronger, consisting of the water whip followed by three spinning ice disks, but Zuko was still able to slice through them without breaking a sweat or even moving his feet. Katara attacked him with a variety of forms over the next few minutes, but her heart just wasn’t in it.

“Can we stop?” she finally sighed, face already contorted in frustration. “I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can.”

Katara shook her head. “Maybe I just don’t have it in me. I don’t know. This isn’t working. I think I’d rather be swordfighting, if I’m honest.”

He sighed. “You need to find your root, the center that keeps you strong. You have to reach beyond your fear, to the place where it can fuel you instead of slow you down. Otherwise—” Zuko swallowed the lump in his throat as a phantom crowd roared in his ears, pulled from the darkest well of his memory.

Otherwise you’d be just like me.

“Have you used bending in combat before?” Katara asked softly, and it was almost more painful to hear the pity in her voice than to feel the cold emptiness inside of him, to recall memories he could never forget, to have the sum total of his life’s failures descend upon him all at once. Zuko nodded.

“Yeah. I have.”

Katara’s eyes always seemed to glitter when she was inquisitive. “What’s it like?”

“It’s...different,” was all Zuko could think of to say. Truth be told, it was a difficult question to answer. Firebending took immense discipline, because it so often flowed from a place of anger; it was part of what made the Fire Nation such formidable soldiers and conquerors. Every fight required enough fear and anger to provoke, to defend, to fight for your life over your opponent’s; firebenders were able to tap into that anger quite naturally, where others struggled or failed altogether. Earthbenders didn’t become angry so much as frustrated; their stubbornness held them up when everything else had fallen down, and their retaliations were blunt and uncalculated—huge demonstrations of heavyweight power, just as solid as the rocks they commanded. Airbenders were complete pacifists; while Zuko had been witness to a few skirmishes here and there during his travels, and had never once seen an airbender do much more than knock an opponent off their feet.

He hadn’t seen waterbending in a fight before, but Zuko knew that it relied on turning an opponent’s energy against them, on shifting the balance of battle as smoothly as water flowed. He had no idea about a waterbender’s capacity for anger, if provoked.

He cocked his head to the side as the idea hit him. Perhaps we should find out.

“Katara.”

“Hm?” she wasn’t even looking at him, distracted as she rolled her neck to stretch it, the faintest smile still lifting her lips. Zuko turned one of his swords, watching it gleam in the light of the lamps all around them. He took a deep breath.

“Do you trust me?”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Even from a few feet away, Katara’s eyes were so blue, so wide, so innocent, as she said: “Yes, of course I do.”

No sooner had the word left her lips when Zuko lunged at her. He was fast, unleashing the full extent of his training, the dao swords becoming mere blurs in his peripheral vision. He kept his eyes locked on hers as he attacked, close enough to see her lower lip tremble ever so slightly in terror, and he brought the swords up and then down, togeth—

Shing.

Pain exploded through Zuko’s arms as the swords stopped abruptly, caught in a sheet of ice that Katara pulled up from the floor. She cowered behind it, arms crossed to protect her face.

For a moment, there was no sound except for their breaths, heavy with exertion, and then Zuko felt the ice loosen around his swords; he pulled them back, a smile already flickering across his lips.

“See, now, that’s bett—ow!” Zuko was knocked off his feet by a hard ball of snow, which hit him in the stomach and knocked the wind from his lungs. He went sprawling back, sliding across the floor, and only had a few seconds to collect himself before rolling out of the way of a second snowball.

“What is wrong with you?!” Katara cried. “Why would you do that?”

“Katara, I—” Zuko was cut off as another snowball hit him square in the face. He sputtered, trying to clear his eyes of snow, and just barely ducked to avoid a thin piece of ice that whizzed over his head close enough to slice off a few strands of his hair.

“You wouldn’t trust me for the longest time,” Katara cried, face red with anger. She took a step towards him, and the ice floor beneath her foot split with a sickening crack. “And now you take my trust, and you—you do that?!”

In his twenty-odd years on Earth, Zuko had made some appallingly bad decisions, but provoking the most powerful waterbender in the world was almost certainly one of the worst. He felt his heart racing as Katara came closer, the floor cracking with every step, as the wind outside howled even louder and the snow flashed past the windows with lightning speed.

“Katara, I’m sorry, I was trying to—hey!” Two pillars of ice rose from the floor to encase his swords, and Zuko barely pulled his hands away in time to avoid being frozen with them. “It was an experiment, I was—”

“What?” she asked darkly, close enough that Zuko could see that she was literally trembling with anger. “What were you trying to do, exactly?”

He swallowed. “I—you have to—you’re fighting, Katara. Don’t you see that? I had to provoke—I wanted to see what you’d do if I—”

The vapour from the walls was swirling around them like a tornado, and he scrambled back as Katara came closer. “So you attacked me without warning?”

“I was never going to hurt you—” Zuko gasped as ice crawled up his feet and ankles, trapping him in place.

“That doesn’t matter!” she yelled, and the wind outside seemed to echo and amplify her voice. “I didn’t know that. I thought you were going to kill me!”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko shook his head to clear the thought. “Katara, listen—”

She reached her arms out to the side and pulled ice from the walls, splitting it into dozens of shards that floated above her palms. “You have no idea,” she hissed. “No idea what you’ve done. How dare you.”

Zuko’s heart was pounding in his chest, his pulse racing against his skin. Last time he’d felt this way, his heart had almost frozen solid and he’d nearly died; now he felt adrenaline coursing cleanly through him, whispering fight back, fight back, fight back, as Katara let the ice shards fly at him, so fast, too fast—  

No!

He threw his hands up in front of his face, and the world exploded into bright white light and a blast of heat. White vapour erupted from the place where the ice shards had been, thicker than the mist from the walls, tanged with the faint scent of—smoke.

Zuko gasped as something inside of him snapped awake and sparked to life. The vapour cleared to reveal Katara, skin ashen, her hands clamped over her mouth and her eyes wide, and Zuko followed her sightline down to see the twin plumes of fire licking at his fists.

Oh.

In an instant, the ice around Zuko’s ankles melted away, and he heard his swords clatter to the floor. There was a sickening shift in his chest as Katara’s grip on his heart loosened for just a fraction of a second, but that was all it took; his fire vanished, snuffed out in the blink of an eye.

“Katara—”

She shook her head violently, already backing away from him. “You’re a firebender,” she whispered, and Zuko’s heart sank.

“Yes,” he murmured back. “I am. But I—”

And then she turned and ran.

“Katara, wait, please!” Zuko cried, breaking into a run after her, struck with the oddest sense of inverse deja vu. He barely caught a glimpse of her hair as she rounded a corner at the end of the hall, heading deeper into the fortress, always just barely visible as he followed. They ran past the courtyard, currently a mess of whirling snow; the halls became unfamiliar as they descended into the lower depths of the fortress, and soon Zuko was helplessly lost. He nearly tripped and broke his neck on a set of stairs that appeared without warning; he all but slid down them, calling Katara’s name over and over, but when he arrived at the bottom of the winding stairs he found himself in complete darkness.

“Katara?”

Zuko snapped his fingers, and swallowed a gasp as a flame sparked to life in his palm. He extinguished it and tried again; another snap, and another flame. They were small and sickly, wavering jerkily as if blown by a nonexistent wind, but they were there. They existed. His firebending.

Zuko’s eyes widened, and he held up his hand just enough to see the glint of Katara’s eyes, to watch as they narrowed in anger and shock and fright. She stood there in the dark, pressed against the back wall, and the silence between them stretched out until it seemed to fill the whole fortress.

“Please let me explain,” Zuko began, but Katara shook her head.

“You lied to me,” she said sharply. “You’re from the Fire Nation. You’re—you’re one of them.”

The flame in Zuko’s hand grew as anger flushed through him. “You lied to me!” he snapped back, stepping forward only to stop when he saw the abject fear on Katara’s face.

“Get out,” she hissed. “Get out, now.”

His flame grew brighter still. “But you’re still healing my heart—”

“I said go!” Katara brought her arms up and pushed, summoning a massive wave that swept Zuko back and up the stairs, around one corner and then another, down hallways and through doors, eventually depositing him with a soaked thud on the floor in front of his bedroom. He shivered as the icy water retreated, snapping his fingers to once again summon his weak little flame—not that it did much good.

As he stumbled into his bedroom, Zuko felt the spark of his anger ignite an invisible fire. He should be overjoyed, elated, relieved at the sight of the flame in his palm; instead, all he could feel was regret. All he could see was the fear in Katara’s eyes; all he could hear was the hatred dripping in her voice, casting him out into the cold.

“If she wants me gone, then fine,” he snapped at no one in particular as he grabbed his pack and began shoving whatever clothing he could find into it. Zuko could feel Katara’s bending still wrapped around his heart, and the realization that she wasn’t just going to kill him on a whim made him even angrier—or perhaps his rage emanated from the tiny voice in the back of his mind that whispered can you say the same for her?

The anger was bubbling inside him, just waiting to break the surface and boil over; Zuko couldn’t stop seeing the way Katara’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and it made him so furious that he slammed the door shut behind him as he stalked off through the fortress. “ Fine!” he yelled once more for good measure, his voice swallowed up by the mist on the walls. The anger kept him warm, kept his legs moving, pushed him back to the ballroom where his swords lay covered in shards of rapidly melting ice. As Zuko strapped them to his back, he stopped.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. This was it. This was the moment. There was never going to be another chance.

But.

Zuko closed his eyes, but all he could see was blood and fire and fallen stars. His heart thudded in his chest, and he thought of how his firebending had vanished as soon as Katara had lost control over the ice crystals.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. He couldn’t. If he did, he would almost certainly die before he reached the coast, never mind home. So there was only one remaining solution: go back to the Tiger Seal, find some help, and hope that the trek bought him enough time for his heart to heal completely.

On the other side of the ballroom, a door led to a small side hall which led to the grand foyer, where two massive doors stretched all the way up to the top of the second storey. They seemed impossibly huge, but creaked open with just a small push.

Leave me alone, she’d said.

Zuko gasped as the cold shot through him, making him tremble all over. But he made himself walk anyway, shoulders hunched against the wind, too distracted by the chaos in his head to notice his fingers going numb.

You got yourself stuck where you did not want to be. Over and over and over again, Zuko got himself stuck. As a crown prince, as an arrogant teenager in a war room, as a pathetic coward crumpling at the feet of the Fire Lord, as an outcast loathed by everyone who saw him. And now, he was stuck at the South Pole, at the mercy of the woman he was destined to kill, stuck with a promise he made for himself never to hurt her.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. Zuko squeezed his eyes shut.

That was the thing; he didn’t want to kill Katara. Even now that she knew what he was, even now that she hated him, even now that she’d cast him out to his certain death. Zuko didn’t want to kill her. In this, as in all things, he was a failure.

He shoved his arms forward in a fierce pushing motion, but instead of a massive fireball all he could summon was a brief burst of flame.

“That’s it?” Zuko yelled, half to himself and half to the world. He tried again, and this time produced nothing; his firebending was flickering like a candle, threatening to extinguish again, just barely maintaining itself; and he felt himself descend into utter despair, stumbling further away from the fortress like a drunkard, head in hands.

Even if I succeed, I’ll fail, Zuko realized. He couldn’t possibly return to the Fire Nation with firebending that was so weak. He could never come back to the royal family without it. He’d never be accepted as a ruler, not without being at least as strong as his father was, if not stronger. That was just how it worked.

The storm picked up speed, obliterating the sky and snow until all Zuko could see was whirling white. He felt rage building inside of him, cold and frighteningly fast, and raised his empty hands to the sky.

“If you want it, then come and take it!” he yelled, his voice disappearing instantly into the ever-present howl of the wind. Even though he was cold, he could feel his anger crackling through his veins and making the hair on his arms stand up on end. “You've always thrown everything you could at me! Why hold back now?”

He was screaming at his father, at his country, at his whole rotten life. At whatever capricious god had looked at Zuko and decided to strip everything away from him, piece by piece: his mother, his home, his honour, his face, his dignity, his bending, and now probably his life. He was screaming at his country, which had made him believe that their war was a process of bringing light to dark places when in fact it had done just the opposite. He was screaming just for the sake of it, to howl into the void, and for a moment it sounded almost as if the wind was calling his name: Zuko!

There was a flash of bright blue light, and suddenly Zuko’s whole body felt like it was on fire, each muscle screaming in pain. He was vaguely aware of the crackle of static in his ears, of a curious feeling of imbalance somewhere in his stomach, like two magnets slowly being pulled apart.

“Zuko!”

It wasn’t the wind calling his name; it was her.

His entire body was stiff as a stone, the crackling energy growing and growing, getting close to his heart—

Get out, Zuko thought. Get out. Now.

The imbalance inside of him collapsed, two sides crashing back together; the light grew and grew until it blotted out everything else, as the energy was pulled out through his right arm and hand until he was utterly empty. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

“You are an idiot.”

Zuko opened his eyes to see Katara’s face, her brow furrowed with worry and her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. He was still lying in the snow, his head cradled in her lap; the sky above them was clear, the stars twinkling peacefully.

“You shouldn’t keep calling me that,” he rasped. “It’s not nice.”

Katara sniffed, gently brushing his hair out of his eyes. “And you should stop getting yourself into such trouble,” she said, her voice thick. “I’m starting to think you might not have the best instincts for self-preservation.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong,” Zuko mumbled. “What happened?”

“You were struck by lightning,” Katara said.

“Huh,” was all he could say.

“Zuko, you were struck by lightning.”

He furrowed his brow. “I know,” he replied. “You just told me. I don’t recommend it.”

Katara shook her head. “No, you don’t understand—lightning doesn’t strike at the poles,” she said softly. “I’ve never seen it happen before. But—it did. It struck you square on, but then—somehow you made it go away.”

Zuko sat up, groaning as every muscle screamed in pain. “My f-family,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “My sister, and my father, and my uncle—they can redirect lightning. And I guess I can, too.”

“What? But— how?”  

“It’s—lightning is fire.” Zuko replied. “My uncle used to say that it was the purest form of firebending there is.”

Firebending. The word hung heavy in the chilly night air, the silence deafening, Katara’s face unreadable. Zuko could barely hold himself upright, never mind try to walk away, so he had to wait for what seemed like an eternity before she finally spoke.

“Why did you lie to me?”

Zuko squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I thought—I thought you’d hate me. Everyone else does.”

His eyes flew open as Katara reached out to cup his cheek in her hand, and it was suddenly very difficult to breathe.

“I don’t hate you,” she murmured. “I just...there are things I can’t tell you. It’s complicated.”

Zuko forced out a chuckle. “You say that a lot, did you know that?”

Katara smiled sadly. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m the one who should apologize,” he sighed, pulling her hand away from his face. “I shouldn’t have attacked you like that. It was wrong.”

“Actually—” Katara swallowed. “I’m glad you did. Because you’re right; I’ve been holding myself back, and I can’t do that anymore. And—and now that I know, about your bending, maybe we can help train each other.”

Now Zuko laughed again, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “So you’re not going to cast me out into the snow to die?”

Katara shook her head. “No, of course not.”

“Even now that you know what I am?”

“Even now, as far as I’m concerned, you’re still just a pest with a profoundly broken heart.”

Zuko sucked in a breath as he remembered the hideously tense sensation of the lightning tearing through his body. “Did—did the lightning...” he faltered, unable to continue, but Katara put her hand to his chest, calm and steady.

“You’re okay,” she said, and Zuko nearly sobbed with relief. “You had me scared for a minute there, but you managed to direct the lightning away from your heart, just in time.”

If only his uncle Iroh could see him now. Zuko wiped away a tear before Katara could see it.

“I promise I won’t do this again,” he rasped, and Katara laughed.

“Good, because I don’t want to see it happen ever again, it was awful.” The lightness in her voice made Zuko feel warm, and for a moment it almost felt like things were back to normal. He covered her hand with his, pressing it even closer to his heart, before letting it go.

“I swear on my honour,” he whispered. “Never again. Can we go back now?”

Katara shook her head, taking Zuko’s chin and tilting his face up so that their eyes met. “First, I need you to promise you’ll do two things for me,” she said. “One, I want you to tell me the truth about everything. Who you are, where you come from, why you’re really here.”

Zuko’s heart skipped a beat, but he was in no position to argue, so he nodded. “Okay,” he whispered, imagining he could leap into the depths of Katara’s blue eyes and never hear the words bring me the heart of the last waterbender ever again. “And the other?”

Katara took his hand and gently brought his middle finger and thumb together; Zuko took the hint and snapped them, unfurling his fingers to reveal the fire. They stared at it for a moment, huddled together around its warm yellow light.

“Second,” Katara eventually murmured, “I want you to teach me firebending forms.”

Zuko blinked, closing his hand over the flame, feeling it snuff out under his fingers. “You—what?”

“And I need you to not ask me why,” she added. “I just...I want you to get better. And I want to learn exactly what it is that you can do.”

He knew he should be suspicious, but instead Zuko just nodded. “I’ll do it,” he said, and was nearly bowled back over as Katara threw her arms around him.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered, her voice wavering with emotion. Zuko returned the embrace, his lips grazing as lightly as possible against the skin of her brow.

There were so many things he wanted to say, so many beautiful and terrifying words clamoring at the tip of his tongue, so many emotions making his heart feel like it might burst. There were so many warnings, so many apologies, so many truths that would shatter everything beyond repair. But Zuko didn’t say any of that. Instead he hugged Katara a little tighter, feeling her heartbeat alongside his own; meanwhile his eyes stayed trained on the horizon, watching and waiting, as he listened to the guttural, almost monstrous howl of the wind.

Chapter Text

Zuko expected Katara to start interrogating him about his background immediately, but she demonstrated an unnerving amount of restraint. He convalesced in his room for the next three days, watching as the last of the lightning’s trauma bloomed and faded across his skin, feeling the pain in his body recede by the tiniest increments each day. All that time, Katara carefully avoided any questions that might remotely be construed as a dig into his past. In fact, she avoided most questions, period, and indeed any conversation at all, which left a bewildered Zuko feeling as if he’d lost a whole limb.

Once upon a time you thought she chattered entirely too much, he mused to himself during dinner on the third day. How the mighty have fallen.

Zuko frowned, chopsticks frozen halfway to his lips. Of late he’d started noticing that particular voice in his head, the one that always spoke with his father’s contemptuous sneer. It was familiar, of course; Zuko heard it all the time. But recently, without Katara to keep him distracted, its presence had become a lot more intrusive, and therefore a lot more annoying. Worse, it amplified all the other annoying little things around him—like the ghostly cracking sound the fortress made when it settled, or how the mist clung to his skin—which made him feel as if the walls were closing in around them. And it would all go away in an instant if Katara would just say something.

Come on, Zuko thought, his eyes affixed on Katara’s mouth as she took a sip of wine. Ask me how my food is. Talk about the dream you had last night. Say something infuriatingly mysterious. Tell me I have a piece of food between my teeth. I promise I won’t be mad. Just—anything. Anything except—

He sighed, reaching for the wine to refill his cup. Zuko didn’t want to talk about himself; in fact, he had made it a point of pride to avoid the subject at almost any cost. He was dreading the questions Katara might ask, terrified of the answers that might spill from his lips. But at the same time, the weight of all the lies had been pulling Zuko down for so long that the lightning strike almost seemed like a sign from the gods. In those first few hours afterwards, as his dreams were filled with bright blue light and his body still held the memory of cold fire blasting through his veins, Zuko found himself feeling—not lighter, exactly, but as if there was more room inside his chest. He hadn’t realized just how confined he’d felt in the identity of a boy from Ba Sing Se, how much more it hurt to have to pretend he’d lost earthbending instead of his inner fire, how tense it was to live with the constant whisper of tell her the truth making his heart race with every second that he disobeyed. In the aftermath of the lightning—in the aftermath of their fight—everything seemed a little bit calmer, at least at first. But as one day became two and two became three, Zuko realized that things were more confusing than they’d ever been.

Katara knew about his firebending. She knew. She had taken his hand and guided him to conjure a flame, had huddled close enough that the warm little light illuminated the golden undertones in her skin and made her look like a goddess. And yet she hadn’t rejected him.

I want you to tell me the truth about everything, she’d said. Who you are, where you come from, why you’re really here. And Zuko had agreed without protesting, a decision which he’d begun to obsess over almost immediately. Hours spent in bed, Katara’s hands cool on his skin—his stomach, his arms, his legs, everywhere the lightning had touched—and Zuko couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d just agreed to tell her his every secret, just like that. Never mind the goosebumps she left in her wake, and never mind the way he kept staring at her lips without realizing. All of that seemed tame by comparison.

Zuko had said perhaps the most confusing thing he’d ever said in his life, and Katara didn’t even have the courtesy to start interrogating him. No, she left him to stew in it, to steel himself every single time she opened her mouth. It was the sweetest torture imaginable.

I want you to teach me firebending forms. And I need you to not ask me why. He’d agreed to that, too, even though the extent of Katara’s own secretkeeping was very nearly the most infuriating thing about her. The spectre of all the things that might be said or unsaid hung over Zuko’s head—a ghost that had followed him in from the cold, making the silences that much more deafening. And now here they were again, eating dinner with no more than a dozen words spoken between them all day.

The scrape of utensils against plates was starting to become irksome, the clamor a little too close to the awful not-sound that had filled his ears as the lightning shot through him. Zuko cleared his throat—subtly, not rudely, just enough to break the silence and still retain the sheen of plausible deniability. His left hand drummed absently on the table, making the wine in their cups quiver. And yet Katara kept her eyes on her plate, all but daring him to speak first.

Finally Zuko folded. “The meat is good,” he blurted, his voice shattering the fragile and frigid quiet.

“Thanks,” Katara replied casually. “I always liked tiger seal, and they’re starting to come back to the pack ice. They migrate to the warmer waters near the coast during the winter so it’s hard to catch them.”

Zuko put down his chopsticks, his mouth suddenly dry. It was so easy to forget, surrounded by the endless night, that the world was turning and the seasons were changing. That the sun would come, one day, and—

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

“Are you going to ask me about my past?” Zuko blinked as the words left his mouth, his cheeks suddenly burning. He half-hoped that the she hadn’t heard him, or that the question would be dropped like so many other topics had been over the past few days, or maybe that the floor would just swallow him up right that second; but instead Katara set down her chopsticks and cradled her chin in her hand with maddening patience.

“Do you want me to?” she replied, the corner of her lips twitching up in a smile that she couldn’t quite smother quickly enough.

This wasn’t going the way he wanted at all. Zuko rolled his shoulders back and puffed out his chest just a little. “Do you want me to want you to?”

“Well, you said you would,” Katara pointed out, examining the underside of her nails. “I did bring you back in from that lightning storm, after all. You owe me.”

Zuko’s jaw dropped. “I saved myself from the lightning, thank you very much,” he retorted. “If anything, you owe me, for kicking me out of the fortress in the first place.” With that, he took a sip of wine, and then another for good measure. Somehow it was easier to talk to her when he was drinking wine.

You know why, came a whisper from deep in his subconscious, but Zuko stamped it out before he could get distracted from the argument that was rapidly building in front of him. It had only been three days, but it felt like so long since they’d properly talked; he found a strange sense of appreciation for how much perverse fun the back and forth of their squabbling could be. There was a noble fight to it, a sense of meet and match, a push and pull that never felt ugly or personal. He could see it on Katara’s face, too; the glint in her eyes that was half exasperation and half exhilaration, and the flush on the top of her cheeks that was equal parts indignant and flustered. She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful, and it was somehow even better when she was being a brat.

As if on cue, Katara scoffed. “Okay, first, I never kicked you out, you just left,” she said, and Zuko felt his jaw drop.

“You said, and I quote, ‘get out now,’” he retorted, trying and failing to suppress a shudder that rippled through him along the path the lightning had followed. He absently rubbed his right forearm, and Katara frowned.

“Oh, I—I’m sorry, Zuko. I have a habit of running off to be alone when I’m upset. I always come back, though. But...I should have told you that beforehand.” She reached out to hover her hand over Zuko’s arm, pulling back before they could touch. “I’m sorry that I made you think I didn’t want you here. That was wrong of me.”

Zuko blinked. “It’s okay,” he replied without thinking.

Katara’s smile had returned, and for a moment he thought about the sun shining on his face. “Also, let’s be clear,” she smirked, “I wouldn’t have been mad if you hadn’t lied to me about being a firebender.”

“I—and what if I’d told the truth?!” Zuko sputtered, pulling the corners of his lips down because he couldn’t stop smiling for some reason. He regrouped with another drink of wine. “What would you have done, hmm? ‘Hi, Zuko here, I know I’m a member of the nation that’s attacked your tribes for generations, don’t mind me, just dropping by for some tea!’ What would you have done then?”

She folded her arms, jutting her chin out in defiance. “I would have healed you, because I’m a healer. That’s what I do. Did you think you’re the first yak-brained Fire Nation dolt I’ve rescued from a snowbank? Don’t insult me.”

“Even so,” Zuko pointed a finger, a little closer to her nose than he intended. “Would you have told me you were the waterbender?”

“Of course not.”

Zuko huffed in frustration, and out of nowhere two tiny jets of flame shot out of his nostrils. “Ah!” he yelped in surprise, scrambling backwards on pure instinct; by the time he realized he’d tilted his chair too far, he’d already gone clattering to the ground.

Katara held it together long enough for Zuko to sit up and shoot her a glare, at which point she burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” he growled, which just made her laugh even harder, until tears squeezed out of her eyes.

“It’s a little funny,” she giggled. “Could you always do that?”

“It’s not a party trick!” Zuko snapped, as he righted his chair.

“My mistake. It’s just—I mean, you’re literally fuming. So want to tell me what’s actually on your mind?”

He poured himself a full glass of wine, downed it, and then poured another. The alcohol was making him heady, and bold, and—crucially—substantially less anxious around Katara. It gave him the courage to shake off his humiliation like a cat landing on its feet; he sat back down at the table and unflinchingly met her gaze.

“It’s not fair for me to talk about myself and for you to keep secrets.” There. After three days, he’d said it. He felt precisely zero percent better.

Katara sat back and finished her own wine, pouring a new cup before Zuko could offer. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to know so much about me?”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

She drank some more. “I mean, why do you want to know? You certainly don’t understand boundaries, so I should at least know why you keep barrelling through them.”

There was something in Katara’s voice, some hint of an emotion that went beyond just the devilish smirk on her face; it infused a crisp sense of meaning into what was otherwise a frustratingly obvious question, but Zuko couldn’t put his finger on it. He furrowed his brow; his hands itched to reach forward and—and what? He couldn’t even imagine what he’d do, so instead he folded his arms across his chest.

“I just...want to know. Call it curiosity.”

Katara gave the facial equivalent of a shrug. “There’s a saying, isn’t there? About how curiosity killed the cat owl?”

Zuko scowled. “Fine, have it your way. But you can’t ask me to tell you everything about myself, and then say I can’t ask you why you want to learn firebending forms.”

Her expression remained unflappable. “But you can’t. Ask me, I mean.”

At that, Zuko leaned far forward across the table, until Katara’s beautiful blue eyes completely filled his field of vision, and then he smirked.

“Why,” he murmured, “do you want to learn firebending forms?”

In response, Katara leaned in, reducing the already tiny bit of distance between their faces; she smirked right back, arching her eyebrow, and Zuko was momentarily overcome with the urge to push forward—

—and then the part of the ceiling directly above Zuko’s head melted and splashed down onto him. He sputtered, peeling his soaking wet hair away from his eyes, and she giggled.

As a general rule, Zuko hated to be laughed at. But the wine was starting to mellow him, and he found he couldn’t be mad; not when Katara’s joy was so infectious, and not when her laughter was so rich and sweet and clear. So instead of flying into a frustrated rage, he just sighed, relinquishing his hold on the smile he’d been fighting not to show.

“Okay, fine,” he acquiesced, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. “How about this: we trade. A question asked for a question answered.”

Katara squinted as she considered the offer. “I reserve the right to refuse to answer certain questions.”

Zuko shook his head. “No. You would just refuse to answer any questions.”

Katara looked offended. “I would not.”

“Yes you would. Or you would couch it in mystery for no reason, refer to yourself in the third person and lead people to believe that there’s a 100-year-old magical lady with a heart made of gold down here.”

Her jaw dropped at that, albeit playfully. “You’re the worst. Did you know you’re the worst?”

“I’ve been told once or twice,” Zuko retorted. “Now, do you agree to the terms?”

The water soaking him suddenly lifted away from his skin, and he started as Katara gently pulled every last drop away and let it all fuse back into the ceiling. Zuko mumbled his thanks, rubbing a hand through his now-dry hair in what he knew was an ultimately futile attempt to flatten it.

“I still reserve the right to skip questions I can’t answer,” she said, softer this time. “Surely there are some things you won’t want to tell me. It’s only fair.”

He had considered it, and she had a point. “Okay, but—you can’t skip everything. How about we each get three passes? And we can’t get mad if the other person uses them, no matter what question it is.”

Katara exhaled. “You drive a hard bargain, but: deal.” She held out her hand as if to shake, and Zuko clasped it, suddenly far more alert than he should be after so many glasses of wine.

Kiss her, he thought suddenly, and his stomach dropped to his toes. It was an audacious and absurd and patently drunken thought, so instead Zuko swallowed the very large lump in his throat and pulled back.

“Okay,” he said, wincing as his voice cracked like a teenager’s. “What do you want to know?”

She smiled tipsily, chin on hand again, peering through her eyelashes at him. “Goodness, you’re offering me the initial question? How noble.”

“Ladies first,” Zuko said softly, though the true explanation was much closer to I can’t think of a question without the words ‘kiss her’ popping into my head, so you’ll have to get the conversation rolling while I deal with that.

“What’s your real name?”

“It’s Zuko; I didn’t lie about that,” he replied. “What’s yours?”

She scoffed. “That’s a waste of a question. It’s Katara, and always has been.”

“You can never be too careful. Next question?”

A purse of the lips, then: “Where are you from?”

Zuko exhaled as a tiny wave of anxiety broke and crested across his heart. “I was born in the capital city of Caldera, in the Fire Nation. That’s also where I grew up. Now it’s my turn.” He watched her for a moment while he thought. “Do you really have no idea who your family actually is?”

A flash of hurt crossed Katara’s eyes. “No. Hama never told me who they were.”

“But she told you that she’d kidnapped you from birth?!” Zuko frowned, surprised by the emotion in his voice.

Katara pouted. “Hey, no fair. It’s my turn to ask, you don’t get two in a row.”

“Oh, come on, follow up questions shouldn’t count. That’s just mean.”

This earned him a scowl. “Fine. Like I’ve said, Hama was a very old woman when I was born. Even before I learned where babies come from, it was obvious that she and I weren’t kin, and she didn’t feel the need to lie about it. I have no idea where I was born; I could be from the North Pole, for all I know. So it’s easier not to dwell on it.” She peered into her glass. “You don’t mind if we get drunk, do you?”

Kiss her, whispered Zuko’s mind, but instead he forced out a chuckle. “Not at all.”

“Good, because I have more in the other room.” Katara held out her hand and made a beckoning motion, and a few moments later two bottles of wine floated through the doorway. Zuko went slack-jawed.

“How did you do that?”

Katara beamed, clearly pleased with herself. “Well, wine is liquid, and I can bend liquid, ergo: wine available on demand.”

“Incredible,” Zuko exhaled the word, breathed it as reflexively as he did air.

“Hm?”

He felt himself go red. “Nothing. It’s your turn to ask me a question.”

“Okay,” Katara said as she filled both their cups. “What’s your favourite food that other people think is disgusting?”

Zuko nearly choked on his wine. “What kind of a question is that?”

She shrugged. “If we only ask each other about the deep and painful stuff, we’re going to get burnt out pretty quick. I want to learn the truth about you, and that includes the little things.”

“Yeah, but—you don’t want to know about my past?” Every time Zuko was pretty sure he’d figured out how Katara worked, she managed to bewilder him all over again. It was a dilemma that definitely wouldn’t be solved by kissing her, and the fact that that was the suggestion his mind supplied was proof enough of how she was driving him to madness.

“You aren’t just your past, Zuko,” Katara answered, her brow furrowing when he scoffed. “What? You aren’t!”

Zuko looked as skeptical as his scar would allow. “You really think you’re going to know me by asking about which foods I like?”

She huffed. “Okay, let me put it this way: if you insist on only asking me about the absolute worst parts of my life, I’m walking away from this game. I’ve had more than enough trauma to dwell on, and I get the sense that you’re not thrilled to talk about certain things either. But life is about more than pain and suffering; it’s also silly and wonderful and strange. And those things are worth knowing about too.”

Her fist, resting on the table, clenched ever so slightly, and the silence following her words was aching. Zuko haltingly placed his hand down beside her own, their fingers just barely touching, and he swallowed as another wave of kiss her crashed over him.

“What was the question again?”

And in a flash, her grin was back again, mischievous and challenging. “What’s your favourite food that other people think is gross? Mine is puffin-seal blubber, spread on toast.”

Zuko wrinkled his nose. “Um. Well. I guess...I always liked to put fire flakes on my dragon’s beard candy, when I was young. My sister and her friends all told me it was disgusting but I always thought the spice made the candy sweeter, somehow.”

“Sounds interesting,” Katara replied. “See? Now we both know something new about each other. New rule: for the casual questions, we both have to answer.”

“You like rules too much,” he smirked behind the rim of his glass.

Katara tossed a piece of her hair behind her shoulder with a flourish. “I thrive on structure, and I like games where you win if you follow all the rules.”

Zuko rolled his eyes playfully. “Of course you do. Okay. Hmm.” He tried to think of something casual. “Oh! Which do you like better, sword fighting or dancing?”

“I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

“So you’re passing? Otherwise you have to answer. Those are the rules.”

Katara made a face. “Ugh, fine. I like dancing better. You?”

“Sword fighting,” Zuko said softly, blinking as his hand came to rest on top of her arm. She didn’t pull away, so he let it stay there. “Though dancing with you wasn’t the worst thing in the world.” He was drunk now, so he decided not to think too much of it when Katara pulled her chair in a little closer, nor the goosebumps he left in his wake as his fingers gently stroked her skin.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Katara said. She looked down at the spot where Zuko’s hand lay, and a faint blush spread across her cheeks. The silence stretched on between them, seconds like minutes, until Zuko found words again.

“It’s, um. It’s your turn, Katara.”

Her eyes were glimmering, and she reached over to brush a piece of hair away from Zuko’s good eye, her touch impossibly soft. Zuko held his breath as the seconds ticked by, but she didn’t withdraw her hand.

“Why did you come to the South Pole?” Katara’s voice was barely a whisper, but the question felt like lightning in his ears.

Kiss her, Zuko said to himself.

“Pass,” is what he said to her.

“Okay, I have one.”

“Go for it,” Katara said softly. It was the next day, and they were in the domed room at the top of the fortress, lying flat on their backs and talking in reverent murmurs as the Southern Lights shone high above.

Zuko imagined breathing in the whole sky, and smiled. “How does the fortress stay up while you’re asleep?”

“How do you mean?”

He turned his head, unbothered if she noticed he was watching her. “Well, when you’re asleep, my heart keeps freezing, right? But the fortress doesn’t melt. Why?”

This earned him a bright burst of laughter. “Oh! That’s because the fortress is tied to the existence of the waterbender. As long as I’m breathing, it stays up. Your heart, on the other hand, requires active conscious care. All the time.”

“I’m so sorry to be such a burden,” Zuko replied with mock hurt, his eyes tracing the graceful curve of Katara’s neck and the way her hair spread out around her head like rays of sunshine piercing the horizon.

Kiss her, his mind added, and he turned back to face the sky, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Apology accepted,” Katara said, her smirk obvious in her voice. “Now it’s my turn: am I the first waterbender you’ve ever met?”

Zuko paused as a memory rose to the surface of his mind. “No, actually,” he answered. “When I was still traveling with my uncle, he had a friend at the North Pole. Pakku, I think his name was. Either way, my whole ship took a three-week detour just so the two of them could play a game of pai sho and drink some tea. I met Pakku very briefly, but…” he felt his face fall. “I was—unhappy, then. Angry. I didn’t pay very much attention.”

It had barely been a year since his banishment, back then. Zuko had spent most of that visit—and most of that year—in his quarters, staring listlessly at the massive Fire Nation banner on his wall, feeling the scar tissue creep further and further down his face.

Katara let out an almost-silent sigh, as the tips of her fingers grazed against his own. “I’m sorry you were so unhappy,” she said. “That sounds silly, I know it’s not much help now, but—you know what I mean.”

“Thank you,” Zuko whispered. No one had ever said they were sorry before. No one had dared.

Kiss her, his mind ordered, so strongly that he bit his lips to make sure he hadn’t accidentally spoken the words out loud.

“Whose turn is it?” is what he went with instead.

“Yours.”

“Hm.” Zuko let his eyes unfocus, blurring the Southern Lights into a congealed mass of shifting colours. “What did you do with the other travellers who discovered you, before me?”

He felt Katara turn her head to look at him. “What? I told you, I’d heal them.”

“No, I mean—how long would they stay? What would you tell them? How would you get them out of that room without them realizing they were in a huge fortress? Because you should probably know, it’s kind of hard to miss.”

Katara playfully scoffed, but her hand crept closer to Zuko’s, fingers gently curling into the hollow of his palm. “Well, let’s see. Most of them stayed a few days; one or two people were in rough enough shape that it was a couple of weeks. I would tell them I was a healer, because that’s what I am. And when it came time for them to leave, well, I’m kind of the most powerful waterbender in the world, so it wasn’t hard to make that hallway look like a humble ice hut while I hustled them out.”

Zuko snorted. “The most powerful waterbender in the world, you say? Now how would you know a thing like that for sure, if you’ve never been outside this fortress?”

“Oh, it’s not hard to guess,” Katara smirked, as she raised her hand overhead and gave a tiny circular flick of her wrist. In an instant, frost crystals began to crawl across the surface of the dome, blocking the sky from view and growing thicker and thicker until they transformed into a solid layer of snow, plunging them into complete darkness within seconds.

Kiss her. Right now. Zuko’s hand tightened around Katara’s and he momentarily lost himself to a fantasy of tugging her closer, of wrapping his other arm around her waist and pulling their bodies together, of his mouth finding the warm curve of her throat in the velvety dark. Instead he snapped his fingers, unfurling his hand to reveal a steady little light the size of a candle’s flame. The first thing he saw was the proud smirk on Katara’s lips, and he gulped as he raised his hand so it illuminated her eyes instead.

“Very impressive,” Zuko managed to say, and with a hint of casual sarcasm to boot, “but I was watching that light show, so if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Fine,” Katara grinned, flicking her hand at the dome again and transforming it back to perfectly clear ice.

With the distraction of the Southern Lights above them, Zuko felt braver. “Showoff,” he muttered with a grin.

“Oh, you love it,” Katara scoffed, and he bit his tongue so he wouldn’t say yes.

“It’s your turn,” he said, hoping to diffuse the tension. Katara blew out through puffed cheeks.

“What’s something small you miss from home? None of the big things. I’m talking stuff that costs less than a silver piece.”

A bright red bloom exploded across the sky, and Zuko exhaled. “Fire flakes, I think,” he murmured. “They make things spicy.”

Katara hummed. “I don’t know what spicy tastes like,” she admitted. “That’s not really in the Water Tribe diet.”

“Spice is…” he closed his eyes, trying to remember. “It’s like warmth, when you get it right. This heat spreads through the inside of your mouth, down your throat, to your stomach. Fire flakes come from a plant that grows along the slopes of the mountainsides, where I’m from. The spiciness is a defense mechanism, because it kills the worms and bugs that would otherwise eat the roots.”

He wasn’t watching her face, but he could tell Katara was looking incredulous. “So it’s toxic? That’s a smart thing to add to your cuisine.”

Zuko sighed, but with a smile. “It’s only toxic to small animals,” he quipped. “I mean, fire flakes could kill you, but you’d have to eat a whole lot of them, and I suspect the pain would make you pass out first.”

“Your favourite food is so painful it makes you pass out?! And the Fire Nation calls us savages?”

Once upon a time, these kinds of comments would have been irritating, if not outright infuriating; now Zuko found himself swallowing an actual giggle, like he was a teenage girl.

Kiss her. He cleared his throat instead.

“You aren’t supposed to eat that much,” he said. “Just a little bit. The heat enhances the rest of the flavours of your food, and the pain fades after a short while, and instead you’re just left with pleasure.”

Kiss her. Saying ‘pleasure’ had been a very bad idea, and Zuko sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees, counting his heartbeats in the stretch of silence that followed. He stared up at the dome; it was pristine and perfectly clear, with no evidence of Katara’s trick. Nonetheless, the memory of the sudden plunge into darkness lingered, making it all but impossible to quell the rising tide in his mind that whispered the same two words over and over again no matter how many times he said no.

“How did you get so powerful, anyway?”  It wasn’t much of a question, but it was something that could take Zuko’s mind off the increasingly persistent kiss her-shaped thoughts in his head. He shivered as the temperature of the air dropped.

“Hama trained me,” Katara answered, her face impassive. “My whole life, she trained me. We did virtually nothing else.”

“Was she powerful too?”

“Oh yes. More so than I’ll ever be, probably.”

Zuko narrowed his good eye. “And Unne before her?”

He’d never seen Katara’s eyes darken like this before, even as the rest of her face remained neutral. “Yes.”

“Why? Is it something to do with being so close to the pole itself?”

“Something like that.” Her answers were becoming quick, clipped, almost terse. The itch in the back of Zuko’s mind no longer whispered kiss her, at least, but it was asking a whole lot of other questions instead, too quickly for his mouth to keep up. No matter, because they all boiled down to one:

“Does it have something to do with the secret of the waterbenders?”

There was a soft sound, like someone had just stepped on a dry stick, and Zuko looked up to see a crack appear at the very apex of the dome, directly over their heads.  

“Pass,” Katara said, her voice just as sharp and cold as the air around them.

Of course she would.

Part of him wanted to protest, to demand more details, to take her by the shoulders and just shake until the mysteries came tumbling out of her like loose coins out of a jar. But he had promised; they had both promised. Three passes, no questions asked. So instead Zuko swallowed what was now a very large lump in his throat, and nodded.

“Okay,” he whispered. “I guess we’ll just watch the—” he looked up, but the sky was pitch black, the Southern Lights suddenly nowhere to be seen. Zuko felt his face fall, but he couldn’t quite figure out why, so he cleared his throat again, climbing slowly to his feet. “I’m tired. I’m going to go lie down.”

Katara looked up at him, her expression once again warm and kind, showing no evidence of the brutal coldness that had very literally shot through him just moments before. “Is it your heart?” she asked.

“No,” Zuko said, because it wasn’t technically a lie.

But as he walked down the spiral steps, leaving the last waterbender behind, he pressed a hand to the center of his chest. He didn’t know why, but the conversation had left him feeling as if a crack had appeared above him, and was slowly but surely spreading.  

A few nights later, they sat on the floor of the courtyard, propped up against one of the thick ice pillars, sharing a bottle of strong wine back and forth as they watched the snow fall in perfect silence.

“If you could have any other bending power, what would it be?” she asked.

Zuko snapped his fingers, pulling a flame into his hand, scowling when Katara playfully blew it out. “I wouldn’t,” he answered. “Not for anything.” He snapped his fingers again, focusing as Katara blew on the fire; this time it bloomed wider across his palm, flickering and wavering against her breath, but remaining alight. They glanced sideways at each other, wearing similar smirks, as Zuko extinguished the flame and beckoned for the wine.

“I think I’d want to be an airbender, maybe,” Katara murmured.

“Nah,” Zuko shook his head, taking a swig from the bottle, the glass still warm from her lips. “You don’t have the temperament for it.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Well, let’s see now,” he replied, marking off on his fingers, “the airbenders are calm, reasonable people of very few words, who don’t have a tendency to get weirdly competitive; they’re pretty good cooks, and they aren’t big showoffs, and—ow!” he exclaimed as she punched him in the arm. “And they’re famously non-violent!”

Katara pouted dramatically, until they both cracked up. “Okay, fine,” she conceded, taking the wine back.

“Now you’ve got the stubbornness of an earthbender, so that might fit,” Zuko continued with a grin. “Though earthbenders aren’t half as neurotic as you are. They would not make a conversation into a game with all sorts of convoluted rules; they’d just...well, not talk at all, actually.”

Katara took a drink of wine. “I feel like these comparisons are all focusing on how much I talk, which is starting to border on mean,” she said tipsily.

Kiss her, his mind whispered. The alcohol wasn’t making the little voice any quieter, but it was slurring the words a bit, which was a marginal improvement.

“I don’t actually mind all that much,” Zuko admitted with a crooked smile, taking back the wine and allowing himself perhaps a larger swallow than was probably wise. “Airbenders aren’t feisty like you are, and earthbenders aren’t bookish.” He paused, lips pursed in thought. “Honestly, if anything, you’d probably be a good firebender. In a so-wrong-it’s-right kind of way.”

She snorted. “I’ve thought the same of you being a waterbender, actually. You’ve got the fluidity of it, but you’re too impatient.”

“Noted,” Zuko said. “Now, my turn. Why do you want to learn firebending forms?”

“Pass,” Katara scoffed. “Nice try, though, now you can’t ever ask me again.”

“Can too.”

She smiled sweetly at him, eyes half lidded, leaning in until their faces were close. “But you’ll never get a different answer,” she cooed, taking advantage of the moment to snatch the wine right from his fingers. When she pulled back to drink, Zuko shakily exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

Kiss her.

What if he did? Zuko had been operating under the assumption that Katara would treat it as an attack, but she kept touching him, kept smiling at him, kept creeping closer and closer, until it seemed she was inside his skin, able to see everything he tried to hide.

No. He imagined shaking his head. Katara was a kind and helpful person who trusted him more than she should, and Zuko couldn’t take advantage of that. No kiss was worth inflicting that kind of damage. He was just lonely and isolated and so incredibly entranced by her lips—

“Ask me a question,” he croaked. “Literally anything. Hit me with it.”

Katara blew across the mouth of the wine bottle, and a low note echoed through the courtyard and was swallowed up by the blanketing snow. “What’s something that I never would have guessed about you in a million years?”

“That—” Zuko clamped his mouth shut, his heart fluttering rapidly.

That I want to kiss you, he nearly said. His mind was getting louder, the whispers becoming shouts, the once-absurd notion of saying the words out loud transforming into a very real possibility, and he couldn’t and he shouldn’t and it wasn’t fair. Zuko’s mind went completely blank, his mouth opening and closing as he tried in vain to think of literally anything else to say.

Kiss her. But he couldn’t.

Kiss her. But she’d run.

Kiss her. But one day he was going to have to kill her.

Kiss her. Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, and tried to think.

Say something. Anything at all, other than those two words put together. Don’t even talk about ki—

“My first kiss was with a boy named Jet.”

Moderate scores awarded to the combatant for avoiding the use of ‘her’, but many more points deducted from the final score, because what the fuck was that?! Zuko blinked, yanking himself out of the blazing firestorm of panic building inside his head, and Agni help him, why were Katara’s eyes always so clear and bright and kind?

Her lips were moving. Sounds were coming out of her mouth. Focus, Zuko.

“You’re right,” Katara was saying. “I would never have guessed that about you in a million years. Maybe even two million.”

In other circumstances, with other women, this would be the end of the conversation, but Katara just handed over the bottle of wine and let Zuko finish it.

And then: “Was he a good kisser, at least?”

Zuko choked, spraying wine across the snow, and Katara cracked up.

“I’ll take that as a no, then.”

Surely she could feel his heart fluttering this fast. Zuko tried to breathe slow, to no avail; he felt like he was perched on the very edge of a cliff, his limbs tingling with the anticipation of a very long fall. “I mean—we were young. I was sixteen. It was all very confusing.”

It was not unlike this moment, in fact, which was making the rising thoughts of kiss her all the worse, because the last time he’d felt this way Zuko had emerged on the other side with nothing but a broken heart and the profoundly dark loneliness which seeped in to fill the cracks.

“My first kiss was when I was sixteen, too,” Katara said.

And then, just like that, the wind seemed to change.

Kiss her.

“That wasn’t the question,” Zuko croaked, because somehow he always managed to find a way to be ornery, no matter how overwhelmed he felt. That was something he inherited from his uncle.

Katara shrugged. “No, but it’s what I felt like saying. It’s your turn, by the way.” She raised her hand in the rough direction of the storerooms, holding it steady, and another bottle of wine floated across the courtyard to land in her palm.

Zuko swallowed, watching as she uncorked it and took a drink. “How do you get bread and wine up here?”

It was another silly question, an inconsequential question, but it was something that might distract him from the buzzing anxiety building inside his chest, so he stilled himself and waited for an answer.

“Well,” Katara murmured, drawing out the L sound, “let me start answering that question by asking you one in return: what did the Water Tribe members say about me, when you asked?”

“They didn’t, and I didn’t,” Zuko answered. “But there was talk in the inn, some nights. That you were a witch, that your heart was made of gold, that you’d run to the very end of the pole where no one else could survive. Scraps of information, but nothing really solid.”

Katara nodded, her chin dipping down and up just out of the corner of his eye. “That’s the story they tell, yes. And I think that’s probably the story that many of them believe, but not all. There are people—a small number, but just enough of them—who know to leave supplies at certain drop points, very very far south, at each new moon. They’ve been doing it since my grandmother first came here, and they continue to do it to this day.”

“Why?”

“In exchange for supplies, Unne gave them near-perfect weather for decades,” Katara murmured. “The seas were calm during fishing season, and the storms would always swerve around the villages and camps. That’s probably the only reason why the Southern Water Tribe is still around today. They would have almost certainly gone extinct without her help. She never abandoned them; she went into hiding, but a bender never forgets her people.”

Zuko frowned, his brow furrowing. “What do you mean by extinct? The Fire Nation and the Water Tribes have had a ceasefire for over ninety years.”

When Katara laughed, it was entirely devoid of humour. “They have, yes,” she said. “But haven’t you ever wondered why Unne was the very last waterbender before the war even began?”

Up until this moment, Zuko had not, in fact, given that notion any thought at all. The revelation was immediately disconcerting, so he shook his head, suddenly afraid to speak.

Katara sighed. “The Fire Nation and the Southern Water Tribe were once quite close, closer than any other two nations on Earth,” she explained. “We exchanged knowledge, resources, people. Everything. We shared secrets, most of which are now forgotten. Down here we once had cities to rival the North Pole, huge fortresses and advanced systems just like theirs. But about four hundred years ago, the Fire Nation attacked us without warning or mercy. The stories say that they gained almost godlike powers overnight, their firebending suddenly able to destroy whole villages in mere seconds. The Fire Nation was desperate to take our most precious secret for their own selfish gain, so they rooted out as many waterbenders as they could find and slaughtered them; the population barely had a chance to stabilize when Sozin began the war, and we faced extinction all over again.”

As if on cue, the orange-red plume of a shooting star streaked across the sky, and Zuko swallowed a surge of dread. Sozin had harnessed the power of a comet that only appeared once every century; it had once merely been the Great Comet, but had been renamed for him after the war began.

The war is about bringing light to the dark places in the world. That’s what everyone had said, and that’s what Zuko had believed. The whole war hinged on Sozin’s great brilliance; he had used the power of the comet that now bore his name, and no one had ever thought of it before he had. Unless—

They gained almost godlike powers overnight, she’d said. Four hundred years ago.

Zuko wasn’t stupid; he could do the math of power and control and corruption and covetous violence. He knew how the Fire Nation could turn on you without warning. He knew what it was to wake up and find yourself burning.

It didn’t begin with Sozin, he realized, with great and sudden clarity. They’ve done this before. We’ve done this before.

“...what did you say?”

Too late, Zuko realized that he’d spoken the words out loud. Katara shrank back from him; the movement was almost imperceptible, except that the solid warmth of her shoulder against his was replaced with the biting crispness of the winter air, and the look on her face was just as cold as a sudden plunge into icy seas.

“Katara, I—”

“Who are you, Zuko?” she said, unable to keep her voice from wavering, and anxiety clutched at Zuko’s heart so tightly that it seemed like the ice crystals might shatter from the pressure.

“W-what do you mean?”

She moved farther away, this time leaving a sizeable gap between them. “I mean, who do you come from? Who are your parents? Why would you say—”

“—Pass,” he almost yelled, forcing the word out as panic began to close his throat.

She’ll hate you, once she knows. Even after so many years, Zuko’s most vicious thoughts still spoke in the perfect clipped cadence of his father’s voice. Do you really think she’ll accept what you are and what you’ve done? Are you that naive?

He had done everything he could think of to forget that voice. He had drowned his sorrows in alcohol, had set innumerable things on fire and watched them burn to ash, had thrown himself into the arms of men and women and the endless open sea, all to no avail.

Katara’s nostrils flared. “No,” she snapped. “You don’t get to pass. You promised you’d tell me who you are. Now I’m asking.”

“That’s not what we agreed to,” Zuko spat back, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. Not now, especially, because while the truth of his lineage had never fully left his mind, it seemed especially abhorrent in this moment, and it was so loud inside his head, the anxiety’s volume drowning out all common sense and logic and vulnerability. He thought of a cornered animal, snarling as the hunters advanced.

“I don’t care!” Katara cried. “Stop hiding the truth from me, Zuko. Please. ”

It was the final word that broke him, shattering the illusion of stillness and peace and joy, and Zuko scrambled to his feet as the dragon of his fury unfurled itself. “Okay, fine,” he hissed. “Then tell me the secret of the waterbenders. Right now. Answer for answer. Unless you’re a coward.”

Katara went ashen, and she stood up too, raising the ice beneath her feet so that they stood eye to eye. In any other context it would have been adorable; but Zuko could feel his head disappearing beneath the waves of panic that crashed over him, pulling him down into the darkness where the worst of his self-loathing lay in wait to devour him. The gentle silence of the snowfall shifted into a very different sort of quiet altogether, and out of the corner of his eye Zuko could see that she’d frozen the snowflakes in midair.

For a moment there was nothing but the two of them there, the tension between them almost visible, their breaths the only sound for miles. Zuko felt his anger burning inside of him, the familiar fire that had wrapped him in its arms for so many years, and it had been so long since he’d given over to it that there was still time, before the inferno rose, for him to think: no. Don’t do this.

“Who are you?” Katara asked again in a whisper.

Just reach out and wrap your arms around her. Pull her to your chest, keep her safe and warm and loved. Tell her everything. Kiss her.

Instead, Zuko leaned his face in close to hers, and tried to ignore how his heart broke when she shrank from him. “I’m more important than you’ll ever be,” he snarled.

This time, when she ran, he didn’t follow.

Chapter Text

In his nightmares, Zuko was following Katara down the hall of the fortress, watching her run in slow motion, her hair shimmering with fallen snow as they wound their way through the icy halls and rooms that were starting to unnervingly feel like home. They arrived at the front doors of the fortress, which blew wide open to reveal a huge city spread out before them, almost as big as Caldera itself. Zuko stopped in his tracks, his jaw slack as he took in the immensity of it all; the city was massive, filled with tents and houses and roads as far as the eye could see. People milled around in thick fur-trimmed coats, the low thrum of their conversations buzzing faintly in Zuko’s ears; burly men brought in huge hauls of still-wriggling fish, as young children darted around their footsteps in an endless game of chase. Whole teams of waterbenders worked in unison to raise massive ice structures whose spires reached for the full moon as it shone overhead, and the Southern Lights shimmered in between the stars like a shy dancer learning to lean into a partner’s touch. 

Beside him, Katara silently reached out and took Zuko’s hand. She was smiling contentedly, her posture proud and tall; she was the rightful queen of her people, and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to stand there with her for the rest of their lives, He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but instead he heard himself say: we’ve done this before. 

The sun’s rays burst over the horizon, and Zuko turned towards the warmth entirely on instinct. But instead of the sun, the heat was coming from a huge wall of fire, propelled by firebenders who were mere specks on the horizon. The members of the Southern Water Tribe stopped in unison, slowly turning to face the fire all at once. 

Run! Zuko tried to yell, but no sound came out. Fight! Don’t let them do this to you! 

But they didn’t hear him, and the seconds passed like hours as Zuko watched the fire collide with the outer walls of the city and blast through them as if they were nothing. Steam billowed up to the sky, and anguished screams pierced the silence as the first people began to burn. Zuko grabbed for Katara’s hand only to feel empty air, and turned just in time to see her ashes blow away—

Zuko opened his eyes slowly. He was alone, his heart beating sluggishly; there was no adrenaline coursing through his veins today, no hammering pulse to snap him back into the waking world, just a low and simmering dread consuming him from the inside out. The world beyond his window was a blank expanse of dark grey, the wind whipping by with a ghostly keening moan, the storm so thick that he couldn’t even begin to guess where the moon might be. Zuko dressed in silence, moving without thinking, his heart sitting heavy in his chest. He found the kitchen based on muscle memory alone, dragging his feet as he shuffled into the larder for a scrap of bread that tasted like congealed ash in his mouth. 

It had been five days since the fight in the courtyard. Five times now, Zuko had been pulled out of nightmares that felt as if they belonged to someone else; five times now he’d watched an entire civilization be destroyed, and five times now he’d woken up to find his heart beating, strong and warm. 

Katara.  

Five days. Nearly a week of solitude, of having nothing to do but let the memory fester in his mind. Hours upon hours of cycling through the same litany of awful emotions, from fury to regret to shame; endless cycles of building up eloquent justifications for his own behaviour and then knocking them all down again. Countless moments spent trying to grasp for the memory of Katara’s smile before the guilt burned it away, because he didn’t deserve to think of her happily, not after all the misery he’d caused. And every second of it had been punctuated by the stubbornly healthy beat of his heart, and the knowledge that no matter how furious Katara must be with him, she was still thinking about him, all the time, in every waking moment—just as much as he was thinking of her. 

Zuko wasn’t sure if he was angry at her for not punishing him when she clearly could, or if he was just frustrated because at least she had an excuse. 

Wandering the fortress didn’t seem mysterious or interesting now; the halls felt just as empty as he did, foreboding and haunted in their silence. Zuko’s feet carried him to the library by sheer force of habit; it wasn’t necessarily his favourite spot, but Katara loved it, and even though he logically knew better he still found that his heart leapt to his throat as he pushed the door open, caught on the hair-thin strand of hope that maybe this time she’d be there. But the library was just as empty and quiet as it had been the day before, and Zuko didn’t try to stop his face from falling at the realization. Instead he let the wave of hurt pull him to the shelves, where he wandered to and fro, running his hand absently over the books and scrolls, pulling a few out at random. He had taken to spending his waking hours here, and today he fell into the now-familiar routine of reading whatever he could get his hands on, his eyes flicking back and forth across pages but rarely retaining anything written on them. In the rare moments when clarity pierced the storm clouds of depression, Zuko found himself learning about a very different Southern Water Tribe than he’d ever been able to imagine—one that had rivaled its cousin to the north, resplendent in its grand detail and ambitious plans for the future. Whether children’s rhymes or detailed histories, the tomes were almost always written in the same hand; most of the time the letters were neat and orderly, but sometimes they were far messier, and it was these pages that always gave Zuko the most pause. Seeing mistakes furiously crossed out and letters cramped up together made the stories seem all the more vivid, as he absorbed not only the words but the very palpable emotions that had borne them to the page. The stories told of wise chieftains and great romantic mythmakers, of heroes and villains and endless people who stood somewhere in between. They spanned thousands of years; at first the names all bled together, but soon Zuko found himself recognizing the familiar ones, his breath caught in his throat as he made the connections between father and son, mother and daughter, descendents and ancestors. He both anticipated and dreaded the moment when he would read the story of the Southern Water Tribe’s decimation, but no matter what he read, he never seemed to find it. The history broke cleanly in two: the ancient time before, with its grand families and ambitious plans glimpsed through a bitter sheen of hindsight like a hazy sunbeam seen through a sheer curtain; and the modern after, resolutely sensible and achingly detailed in its domesticity, so obviously the time that the writer had known best. And in between—nothing. It was as if the Southern Water Tribe suddenly woke up one day and found themselves in a completely different world. 

But Zuko knew what happened. The stories say they gained almost godlike powers overnight, their firebending suddenly able to destroy whole villages in mere seconds. He had committed it to memory, watched it clash with the established history he’d been taught all his life, and reckoned with the true wickedness that had run through his family line for so long that it seemed more obvious than ever that he would never be able to make his father proud of him. 

Though I’ve always known that, haven’t I? he mused to himself as he went back to the shelves for the fourth time that day. I’ve always known I’m a failure. I’m soft, I care too much, and I don’t have the stomach to deal with true power. But now, as Zuko stopped at a random shelf to pull out another book, he found himself dwelling on how it all seemed to shine anew, the scabbed-over wounds ripped open and shimmering with a fresh layer of blood, and—

Huh.  

Something shifted behind the book when Zuko moved it. He ducked his head to peer into the empty space on the shelf, his fingers prodding at a thick sheen of dust, until he felt the edges of the object and pulled it out into the lamplight. 

The scroll was small and plain, so innocuous that Zuko wasn’t sure at first why it had been hidden; the only thing that made it remarkable was the fact that it clearly hadn’t been touched in years. Zuko unrolled it out of idle curiosity, his eyes skimming over the same familiar handwriting that he’d been acquainting himself with all week—but then he nearly dropped the other books in his arms as he saw the words All my love, Unne.  

“Oh, fuck,” Zuko whispered to himself, falling back into his chair, hands shaking. Everything else was forgotten as he opened the scroll and started to read from the top. 

Dear Arnaq,

I know I will never send you this letter, but I am writing it to you all the same, just in case I don’t survive this. Just in case you break your promise and come looking for me after all. I’ve spent the past eight months writing down every story I can remember, every historical account we’ve carried down through the years, every rhyme and riddle we were taught as children. The waterbenders of our tribe have always kept our history alive, passing on our knowledge and protecting our secrets. I don’t think our tribe has ever had its full history written down before; ice makes for poor scroll storage, but I’ve had little else to do but think and think and think, and now the time has come when I cannot hold back on the story I have wanted to tell the most. The truth will threaten the lives of everyone we love; I had accepted that fact, and up until tonight I was content to live with the consequences of my actions and let history tell the stories that will keep our people safe. But tonight, I break my vow; I want someone, anyone, to know the truth. If that makes me selfish, then so be it. 

Tonight, the sun will rise for the first time in months. Tonight, my powers will weaken, perhaps for the very last time. And tonight, a comet will fly through the sky over the Fire Nation. It is a comet that has gone largely unnoticed, a comet whose light has never shone on our side of the world, but one which will dictate the fate of our people nonetheless. I have held my breath, watching the sky outside the window, waiting for the sun to rise, hoping against hope that the warmth on my face will not be the blazing fire of our complete destruction. If it is, then I suppose this letter will burn along with everything else, and all my effort will have been for nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time that my best intentions ended up destroying everything. 

I know the story that people will tell about me: they will say that I rejected a perfectly solid peace treaty for entirely selfish reasons, that I was savage and untamable, that I was more obsessed with meaningless ancient traditions than with the future of our people. This is the price of keeping secrets: eventually the lack of knowledge will lead to a repetition of the same mistakes. But I really loved Roku, Arnaq. I want you to know that, first and foremost. I loved him without fear, without reservation, without hesitation. I never thought it could be so easy to love someone like that; I suppose I should have taken it as a warning, for little in life is truly so easy—but even with all that’s happened as a result, I can’t bring myself to regret it. My heart is profoundly and permanently broken, but for a few months it shone brighter than the midnight sun ever could. 

You know better than anyone how much I loathed the deal that Father had made to marry me off, but when the delegation arrived, and when I began to spend time with Roku, things changed very quickly. The rest of the Fire Nation nobles treated us like savages; but Roku treated me like a human being, and despite my initial doubts it quickly became clear that his interest in our tribe—and in me—was genuine. He was just as stubborn as I am, just as competitive, and just as serious about his bending. In fact, I think it was his bending that I fell in love with first; he made fire seem so beautiful, like a spark of life and magic rather than the inferno of death I knew it could be. I can’t even describe what it was like to spar with him for the very first time; I felt something come alive within my soul, something that had lain dormant for so long that I’d forgotten it was ever there in the first place. 

When Mother died, I was the last waterbender left in the tribe; we all mourned her for so many years, and her loss was felt so keenly in so many ways, but I never truly mourned the loss of another bender in my life. Then Roku came along, and his firebending was so remarkable; he was my match, and challenged me like no one else ever could. Before long I began to think of the stories of our ancestors, hundreds of years ago; you know that time as merely a complex web of folly and outsized ambition, but I know it was also a time when firebenders and waterbenders lived harmoniously and could work together to increase their powers. I told Roku some of this, and when he offered to teach me firebending forms, I thought he was joking. But against all odds, it worked; the firebending forms showed me a whole new way of tapping into my chi, and my waterbending became better than it had ever been before. Roku began to copy my waterbending forms, and his own powers grew in both might and stunning beauty. Before the delegation arrived, I was strong; but with Roku by my side, I—we—were unstoppable. 

For those first few months, we lived in blissful ignorance of the political machinations that surrounded us, and I began to believe that this was all possible—that I could fulfill the bargain, marry Roku, and secure peace for our people. But then one night Roku told me something that shook me to my core: his best friend, Sozin, had uncovered a scroll buried in an ancient library out in the eastern desert, one which told of a comet that only flew across the sky once every hundred years, but which would grant unimaginable power to any firebender who could harness it. I was the only one who knew, sister; I alone held the memory of the great wall of fire that had destroyed our civilization four hundred years ago, bourne by firebenders whose powers could only have come from one of two places: either the comet, or the secret that has lain buried, safe beneath the ice here at the very tip of the pole. 

Mother told me about the secret of the waterbenders just before she died, and made me swear to only ever pass it down to the next waterbender. She was adamant that if we kept the secret hidden for long enough, it would be resurrected at some nebulous point in the future, and bring peace back to the world. But then Roku came along, and I began to wonder: why not now? What was stopping me? The impossible had already happened; I’d fallen in love with a firebender, and he loved me in return. Our hearts were combining, and our bending styles were a perfect match; it was as if destiny was whispering in my ear, telling me all the good things we could do if we showed everyone just how close our two civilizations had once been. That way Sozin didn’t have to use the comet, and the entire world could remain safe from its destructive power. It seemed ludicrous to stay silent when there was a chance we could avoid the war completely, and usher in a new era of understanding and peace based on the forgotten knowledge of our ancestors. So Roku and I trekked to the pole, and found the secret exactly where Mother said it would be. 

What a fool I was. 

On her deathbed, Mother told me she was sorry, that she always thought there would be more time. She warned me never to go looking for the secret we’d buried, and for years I thought she was warning me against revealing it to anyone else. But now I think there was more to the secret than she was able to tell me; perhaps the knowledge had already degraded by the time she had learned it, the specifics forgotten or censored or simply never spoken of again. Whatever the reason, it quickly became clear that the ritual was more complicated than what I’d been told; while it began well enough, things soon began to go wrong, and I had no idea why. Nonetheless I tried to tell Roku to keep going; I tried to tell him that the pain was bearable, even though I was sure it would kill me. Roku wanted to go for help, but as I begged him to stay, I watched the expression on his face change. He was concerned for me, yes, but there was also something else: fear. The kind of fear that consumes a man until he’s nothing but a coward; the kind of fear that overrides logic and love to shriek run, run, run in your ears. The kind of fear that would lead a man to tell everyone he knew of the horrors he had just seen, and let the comfort of a crowd’s fury envelope him until he didn’t feel like he was alone anymore. I knew Roku was going to bolt before he did it, and yet it still stunned me to watch it happen, and in that moment my control slipped completely and it was almost a comfort when the pain knocked me out. He ran all the way back to the village, all the way back to the delegation—and they were gone before I could do anything to stop them. It wasn’t until I regained consciousness that I realized what had gone wrong: I was pregnant. Apparently you’re not supposed to attempt an ancient ritual when you’re with child. It would have been nice to know that particular secret, I think. It would have been nice to know a lot of things. 

There are so many answers that lie buried in the past, Arnaq. We keep them secret to protect the ones we love, but I now realize that all we really do is condemn ourselves to make the same mistakes over and over again. I knew everything that was required for the ritual, and I had it: my heart belonged to Roku, and I thought his belonged to me—the kind of great love that makes anything possible. I didn’t stop to consider what might happen if it all fell apart, and now I’ve destroyed everything I worked so hard for. My great love has been more of a great folly, my destiny a cruel joke. I gambled everything on true love, sister, and I lost. My family, my tribe, my future—I don’t know if any of it will ever recover. I will never see Roku’s face again. He will never know his child. The world may never be at peace. 

It seems almost irrelevant to confess that I lost my waterbending, too, even though that’s perhaps the biggest loss of all. I didn’t realize it at first; my powers were just as strong as ever, and I was able to cast my eye out over the sea and watch the delegation ships disappear beyond the horizon. But it quickly became clear that those powers lay in the heart of the child I was bearing, and soon she will no longer be a part of me. Perhaps I will not survive her birth, dooming her to die in the cruelest way imaginable. Perhaps I will, but the Fire Nation will descend upon us anyway, reducing us to ash along with everything else. Roku knows something that no one in the Fire Nation has known for generations; it remains to be seen whether his heart has hardened enough to use that information against us. That’s the power of a secret, Arnaq; at some point protection and destruction become one and the same. 

Our daughter will be born on the eve of the comet’s passing, on a night when the world will change for the worse. She will be born with all of my strength and all of Roku’s tenacity, with my stubbornness and his ambition. She will have my bending; I know that already, because I’ve been leeching off of her ever since the ritual failed. But more than just inheriting the traits of her parents, she was also caught in the crossfire of ancient and dangerous magic, and the spirits only know what else she will be able to do. 

The contractions are closer together now; I can barely get through writing a sentence without pausing to scream. Mother never warned us it would be this bad, though perhaps it isn’t, for normal women. I know I deserve the pain; it is punishment for my hubris, for thinking I could ever change the world. When this child arrives, she will be everything of Roku and everything of me, and yet I despise the very thought of her. She is the single point of hope for our entire future, but she also represents everything that has been taken away from me. I can feel my waterbending weakening as she gets stronger; soon she will be the only thing standing between our deepest treasures and total annihilation. And yet I must stay alive, and must keep going long enough to ensure that my daughter knows everything that Mother never taught me, even if we’re all about to be razed to ash and dust. Because despite the pain, despite the anguish, despite all of it, I still have hope for the future, and I can’t give up on that. I will never turn my back on people who need me, and this child—and our people—need me now more than ever. 

I think I’m going to name her Hama.

All my love,
Unne

Zuko held onto the letter for a very long time, the words swimming before his eyes until they blurred into meaningless shapes. There were many more puzzle pieces jumbled around in his head now, any answers obscured by the myriad number of new questions that had just been raised. He listened to his heartbeat ring in his ears, and he took a moment to look at the countless books and scrolls all around him, suddenly overwhelmed with the intensity of Unne’s work. Every scratched-out mistake and anguished smudge of ink suddenly felt like an ice shard against his heart as he imagined what it must have been like for her, waiting with dread and terror in the lonely dark, surrounding herself with every story she knew and being eaten up inside by the secrets that had destroyed her. The library suddenly seemed more like a tomb than a sanctuary, and Zuko’s chest felt tight with unshed tears as his eyes skimmed back and forth over the letter, letting it all hit him again like a returning tide. 

Roku knows something that no one in the Fire Nation has known for generations; it remains to be seen whether his heart has hardened enough to use that information against us.  

Zuko knew very little about his mother’s history; Roku was her grandfather, and just one name among many that he’d been forced to memorize during his studies. As with all of his mother’s relatives, Zuko had always envisioned Roku as kind and warm; it was confusing to read that his prediction had been correct, and even more confusing to learn that sudden disappearances apparently ran in the family too. He wished, for perhaps the hundredth time, and Katara was there with him; she was an infuriating mystery, but she always seemed to have the answers right when Zuko needed them most. But where to even begin? With Unne, trapped and alone with her broken heart and broken bending? With the still-mysterious secret of the waterbenders, which was a ritual that apparently required a firebender to complete? With the alluring hint of increased powers if they worked together? Is that why Katara wanted to learn firebending forms?  

That’s the power of a secret; at some point protection and destruction become one and the same. 

It was the weight of Unne’s secrets that seemed to sting the most, and the inescapable feeling that he had spent the past week trodding on all of hers without even realizing it. It was secrets, in the end, that kept the bitter taste in Zuko’s mouth and twisted the painful knot in his shoulders. Secrets and lies had once seemed so easy and now felt like poison spreading through his veins. Katara’s words filled his mind again, as clear as they’d been five nights before: Stop hiding the truth from me, Zuko. Please.

He had been so afraid, and now it seemed so childish. 

A yawn hit him without much warning, making his whole body shake as exhaustion blanketed him like heavy snow. He tucked the letter back into its hiding place, replacing the book with a reverent touch, and shuffled back to his room in a daze of a very different sort than the one that had enveloped him when he’d left. The storm was still whirling, and the fire in the hearth did little to indicate how much time had passed. Zuko curled up in bed and stared out his window at the gloomy greyness of the blizzard, trying to force his mind to go blank. But there was no comfort to be found in the chaos now; the wind seemed like a mourning cry, howled by ghosts that lay just beyond the endless whirling snow, and screaming faintly: that’s the power of a secret. 

In his dreams, Zuko was dancing with Katara across the night sky itself. They cut a path through the swirling stars as he swept her around, his arm curled firm and close around her waist. Katara’s eyes were glistening, and this time there was no hesitation; his lips found hers with ease, and the stars shone brighter as he cupped her face in his hands. 

When they parted, Katara was smirking. “The waterbender had a destiny, you know,” she said, pressing a tiny kiss to his palm. 

You’ve told me, Zuko murmured. 

Katara’s smirk grew, and she leaned in, trailing her lips up the line of his jaw to whisper in his ear: “Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.”

Zuko gasped as a knife appeared in his hand. He jumped back, leaving his body behind to hover and watch like a helpless spirit. No, he begged himself. No, no, please don’t—

But he was no longer in control, no longer able to slow the swing of his arm or the thrust of his wrist, no longer able to cover his ears against the horrifying lack of sound as the blade slipped between her ribs and was buried to the hilt. Zuko screamed, yelled, and begged—but the South Pole was silent and still as Katara crumpled to the ground. 

No! he cried, willing his limbs to move to no avail. Maybe there was still time—

The sun’s rays suddenly burst out over the horizon, and Zuko was yanked back into his own body, flinching away from the heat as it nearly scorched the top of his head. He looked up, but the sun was nowhere to be found; the light was instead radiating from the spot where he and Katara had stood just moments before, where a creature made of flames was now crouched over a small pile of ashes. It burned so bright that it was nearly impossible to discern most of its features—it was the rough shape of a human, with eyes that glowed white-hot and a rough dark void where a mouth might be. 

Zuko scrambled backwards. What—

The fire monster looked at its hands, soot falling between the plumes of its fingers, and sat back as if in shock. There was a moment of hideous silence, punctuated only by the soft crackle of flame; then the monster’s rough features contorted into an undeniable mask of grief and rage, and it threw its head back and howled to the sky. Zuko’s hands flew to cover his ears as the sound bombarded him with visceral impact, and he felt the flesh of his face catch alight as flames billowed out in every direction—

Zuko bolted upright in bed, his heart racing, drenched in a cold sweat. The monster’s screaming was still ringing in his ears; he rubbed at them, but the sound refused to fade, and instead began to coalesce into something distinct—something human. 

Katara—

He fought to free himself from the tangled sheets and stumbled out of his room, running at full sprint through the fortress until he reached Katara’s bedroom, where he pushed the door open to find her—asleep?  

Zuko froze, suddenly unsure of what to do. Katara was so powerful, and so angry at him, and he honestly had no idea how she might react if he disturbed her now. Would she lash out at an unexpected touch? Would she kill him? She certainly could. 

But he couldn’t just stand there, not when Katara was in such obvious distress. She was tossing and turning, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. “No,” she cried as Zuko approached her. “No, no, Hama, please—”

Just as Zuko’s fingers found the skin of her bare shoulder, she bolted upright in bed with a gasp, eyes wide and nearly feral with terror. Her hand caught Zuko’s wrist in a vice grip as a spike of ice shot up from the floor to just barely graze his throat. 

“Katara, it’s—it’s me!” he croaked, feeling the ice dig into his Adam’s apple. “It’s Zuko!” 

It took a few moments before she seemed to recognize him, but eventually Katara’s expression dropped and the ice melted away; Zuko saw her lips soundlessly form his name, and then she buried her face in her hands and burst out sobbing. 

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, rubbing his wrist. Zuko had never been very good at comforting crying girls; it always felt profoundly stilted, and no matter what he did it never seemed to be right. As he sat, paralyzed by indecision, Katara’s shoulders shook with silent sobs and the lines between her fingers glistened with tears. A jolt of exquisite pain shot through his heart at the sight of her, and before he had time to think he reached out and...patted her awkwardly on the arm. Profoundly stilted as always, Zuko. 

“Are you okay?” internally he winced. Forget the fire monster; this was the real nightmare. 

“Yes,” Katara said shakily, straightening up and wiping her eyes. “You don’t have the monopoly on bad dreams around here, you know.” 

Zuko felt a small jolt of irritation as the dragon of his fury prodded the terse atmosphere, inquisitively seeking a possible fight, but he pushed it down. The days they’d spent apart seemed like so much longer now that he could hear Katara’s voice and see the emotions in her eyes, and in an instant all of the remnants of his anger melted away as if they’d never been there at all. 

Kiss her, his mind whispered, because it had been on tenterhooks waiting to see her again. 

“What were you dreaming about?” Zuko forced the words clumsily out of his mouth, hoping they sounded as genuine as he wanted them to. He wasn’t great at gauging that kind of thing. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Katara replied. “Pass, I guess.” 

The rules of their game suddenly seemed like the most absurd thing in the world, and Zuko shook his head. “That doesn’t count as a pass,” he said gently, unable to keep from snickering. 

Katara glared. “What’s so funny?” 

“It’s just—I woke you from a screaming nightmare and that’s what you’re worried about?”

She sniffed. “It never hurts to check,” she replied with half-hearted sullenness, before cracking up too. They laughed together, softly, briefly—a few breaths of levity like shafts of sunlight piercing through clouds. By the time the sound died out, Katara was sitting up a little straighter, her breathing calm. 

“Can I ask you a question?” she whispered, and Zuko nodded. She fiddled with a loose thread on her quilt, determinedly avoiding his eyes, until finally she swallowed and looked up. 

“You’ve been in combat. Have you ever killed anyone?”

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. 

Zuko held her gaze without flinching. “No,” he answered, because it was the truth. 

“But you’ve—seen death, right?” 

He maintained eye contact, his expression as neutral as he could manage. “Yes.” 

“What’s the worst thing you’ve seen?” 

Now Zuko looked away, waiting for his hair to fall across his face before closing his eyes, praying for his heart to stop fluttering and knowing that it never would. 

“A father setting his thirteen-year-old son on fire.” 

He imagined the look on Katara’s face and screwed his eyes closed even tighter, the edges of his scar digging into the still-sensitive flesh around it. 

“That’s…” she trailed off. Zuko bit back a sardonic smile, because he couldn’t blame her; there really, truly were no words. He knew that better than anyone. 

“Spirits,” Katara finally breathed. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like to see that.” 

“You really can’t,” Zuko agreed softly. 

“When was it?” 

“Seven years ago.” 

“Can I ask…” Katara said hesitantly, “do you ever stop seeing it, in your head?” 

Zuko bit his lip, fighting back a laugh, or a sob, or maybe both. “Katara, I—”

“—please look at me,” she pleaded, and he was helpless to resist. 

“No,” he eventually said, “you don’t.” 

He wished he couldn’t see the despair in her eyes, the hope snuffing out as she realized she’d truly never be the same. “Does it get easier?” 

“Not really,” he replied. “Maybe a little. It becomes...familiar. Like a part of you.” 

Katara looked sad, but not surprised. “I just feel so heavy, ” she sighed. 

Kiss her. Zuko’s hands ached to touch her, but instead he kept still. “Have you ever told anyone about it before?” 

Katara’s mouth set in a thin line. “There’s never been anyone around to tell,” she whispered. 

Zuko absently rubbed the back of his neck. “My uncle used to say that talking about difficult things made them easier to bear. That sharing your feelings was like distributing portions of a large sack of rice, because even one grain given to someone else is one grain less on your back.” 

“Is that so?” Katara said guardedly, wrapping her arms around her knees. When Zuko nodded, she arched her eyebrow. “And was your uncle right?” 

“I...I don’t know,” Zuko admitted. In the days and weeks and months and years after the worst thing he’d ever seen, Iroh had tried time and again to get him to talk about it, and Zuko had always rebuffed him, ignored him, scoffed at the mere notion. Now, in the clear light of the moon, he felt his cheeks redden at the memory; what had once felt like a preservation of pride now seemed like brash foolishness. “But—you said you feel heavy. Maybe it might help.” 

Katara narrowed her eyes. “You go first, then. To prove it works, since you’ve never tried.” 

Zuko couldn’t really argue with that. “Okay.” 

He saw her eyes flick to the left side of his face, and realized too late that he’d walked right into his own worst punishment. Katara wasn’t vindictive and she wasn’t petty, but she was sharp as a blade and knew him far better than he wanted to admit, so Zuko knew what she was going to say before the words even left her mouth:

“Tell me how you got your scar.” 

He squeezed his eyes shut, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper. A torrent of horrifying images and sounds and smells descended upon him all at once, floodgates bursting open and unleashing the full destructive power of everything he’d held back for so long. 

Katara recoiled ever so slightly, her expression hardening again. “Fine, then, never mind,” she snapped. “Just leave me alone.” 

But he couldn’t move, paralyzed by fear and shame and the onslaught of memories that descended like a heavy fog to trap him. He was vaguely aware of his pulse fluttering against his skin, of black spots exploding across his field of view, of gasping silently for air as the room began to sway. Suddenly he was back on his ship, staring at the reflection in his stateroom mirror, his facial bandages hanging limp from one hand as the floor shifted beneath his feet with every wave that took him farther away from home. Suddenly he was seeing his new face for the first time, too horrified to even scream. Suddenly the rushing sound in his ears was the roar of a bloodthirsty crowd, and his skin was black and red and weeping and Agni, it stung, it was still burning—

“Zuko?” Katara’s voice seemed very far away, and Zuko swore he could feel the ice crystals take root and begin to spread throughout his chest, because surely he was about to die. He flinched as Katara laid her hand on top of his own, her skin cool and dry. His fingers ached, but try as he might he couldn’t unclench his fist from where he’d grabbed at the bedspread. 

“Zuko.” This time she said it more firmly, tugging his arm until he turned to face her. She pressed her other hand to his chest, looked deeply into his eyes, and breathed: inhale, exhale. She did it again and again, and Zuko didn’t even realize he was mimicking her until the rushing sound in his ears began to subside, and his heartbeat slowed and steadied under her palm. 

“That’s better,” Katara murmured, always the healer no matter the situation. She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful. 

“I’m sorry,” Zuko rasped. This wasn’t the first time he’d had a panic attack, but each one always felt brand new. 

Katara sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “This was a bad idea,” she said with a sigh. “I hope you see that now. And I think you should leave.” 

Zuko shook his head. “No, I—” he stopped as a realization hit him. During his banishment, his uncle had gotten very good at recognizing the signs of impending panic and getting Zuko to a safe place, somewhere alone and out of sight. Iroh used to breathe with him, just as Katara had, and after the hyperventilating had stopped and the trembling had subsided, Iroh would say: You know, Prince Zuko, talking about difficult things can make them easier to bear. Every time, the tone was the same: lightly inquisitive, almost infuriatingly non-confrontational, as if Iroh had only just thought of the idea and as if Zuko hadn’t heard it a dozen times already. Every time, Zuko had said no; of course he did. Talking about his feelings was weak, pathetic, unprincely—a sign that he really was just as undeserving as his father said. Talking had always felt impossible, so both question and answer had eventually transformed into another part of the process—a prayer tossed off to indifferent gods, just a series of sounds that brought the ritual to its end. But now—

“I’ll tell you,” he whispered. 

He had felt so heavy for so many years. 

Katara’s expression didn’t change, but Zuko felt her control temporarily slip, causing his heart to skip a beat. Or maybe it was just him. 

“I’m still mad at you,” she warned. “A sob story isn’t going to change that.” 

Zuko smiled bitterly. “I don’t expect it to,” he replied. The panic had sucked the energy from him, leaving a curious calm in its wake; his worst thoughts and feelings now just felt numb, their fuel spent and nothing left to burn. It was just as well, considering what he was about to do. He didn’t know where to start, so he opened his mouth and prayed for the best. 

“Do you remember what I told you, in the ice dome?” 

She nodded. “You said it was your fault. That you disobeyed orders.” 

Zuko was surrounded by an entire fortress of ice, and his mouth had never felt drier. Go figure. He swallowed. “My uncle let me come to a war meeting,” he began. “I was given strict instructions not to speak, because I was still too young; but I wanted to go, to prove myself to my father. The meeting was boring, mostly military updates about the Earth Kingdom. But one of the generals, he—he was going to send a whole division of brand new recruits into a death trap, to use them as bait. Easy marks to draw the enemy into the open, and then the more advanced troops could ambush them from behind.” 

Katara covered her mouth with her hand. “That’s horrible,” she whispered between her fingers, and Zuko nodded. 

“Yes, it was. And I—” he faltered, the words stuck in his throat, painfully sharp as he swallowed them to try again. “I told him as much. I stood up and protested; the general couldn’t do that to those men. They loved the Fire Nation, they had volunteered to protect it, and it seemed unbelievably cruel to send them to their deaths.” 

Katara’s eyes were glittering, and with a surge of dread Zuko realized she was proud of him. 

“My father became angry,” he continued before she could say anything to confirm it. “He said that I had completely disrespected the general by speaking out against his plans, and that there was only one resolution to the situation: a fire duel. The Agni Kai, it’s called. And I said yes.” 

“Why?” 

Zuko felt his lip lift in a sneer of long-buried anger. “It was one old man. I was young and arrogant and stupid, and I thought I could win. But when I got to the arena, I turned to face my opponent, and—”

He stopped, utterly lost for words. The seconds stretched on and on, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. 

“...and?” Katara prompted, her tone somewhere between impatience and compassion. 

Zuko ran his left hand through his hair. “You asked me about the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he managed to croak, forcing himself to meet her eyes. “Ask me again.” 

“What’s the worst th…” Katara went ashen, her eyes widening as she put the pieces together. “Wait, how old—you couldn’t— no.” She was shaking her head in tiny movements, desperately searching his face for any hint of exaggeration. He held her gaze, and hoped she could read it in his eyes: I’m sorry I can’t tell you it’s not as bad as you think. It’s exactly as bad as you think.  

“So,” Zuko finished awkwardly, “that’s the story—” he was cut off abruptly as Katara threw her arms around him, pulling him close. He closed his eyes, buried his face into the crook of her neck, and listened to her heartbeat flutter alongside his own. 

“I am so, so sorry, Zuko,” Katara whispered. “For everything you’ve been through.” 

Me too, he wanted to say, but if he opened his mouth now he just might shatter. 

Eventually she released him, but her hands lingered on his neck for what seemed like a very long time. “So,” she said, “do you feel any better?”

Zuko breathed deep into his chest, and his inner flame brightened along with it. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I think so.” But even as the words left his mouth, the echoes of their fight in the courtyard came back to haunt him, and Zuko realized with great and terrible clarity that he wanted to tell her everything—every transgression, every sin, every scar. His fingernails dug into the palm of his hand as he opened his mouth. “Katara, I—” 

“—I was dreaming about Hama,” she blurted at the same time. 

Zuko put up his hands to stop her. “No, you don’t have to—” 

“You said we’d trade,” Katara said, her expression sorrowful but determined. “Answer for answer. You’ve given yours, so—I was dreaming about Hama. About the night she—died.” Her fingers found the loose thread of her quilt again. “Hama was...there was a lot I didn’t understand about her, growing up. She was sometimes capable of kindness and humour and brilliance, but she could turn around with no warning and be so unbelievably cruel that I—” she smiled bitterly. “Sometimes I don’t know how I got through it for so long, thinking it was normal. Thinking it was love.” 

Zuko silently reached over and took her hand in his, and she squeezed as if holding on for dear life. 

“I wanted a mother who would love me, and she wanted—I don’t know. A protege. A prisoner. Someone to carry on the work that began with Unne.” 

Unne. The contents of the letter came flooding back to him. “Unne hated Hama,” he breathed to himself, and Katara’s eyes darkened. 

“Why would you say that?” 

That’s the power of a secret; at some point protection and destruction become one and the same. 

“I found something in the library,” Zuko said, even as fear gripped his heart like iron shackles. “A scroll. A letter Unne wrote, just before giving birth to Hama.” 

Katara didn’t respond, clearly stunned into silence. He hung his head. 

“I’m so sorry—” 

“—show me,” she ordered sharply, and he looked back up at her, blinking in confusion. 

“What?” 

“Show me,” Katara repeated in a fierce whisper as her hand fisted into the sheets. “Please. Right now.” 

And with that she threw the covers back, nearly toppling Zuko over as she clambered off the bed. He scrambled to follow her out the door, ignoring the haunted sense of deja vu he felt as they wound their way through the halls, her bare feet seeming to float on top of the ever-present mist. It wasn’t until they actually arrived at the library that Katara stopped to look back, her jaw set and her eyes blazing, waiting as he retraced his steps to the correct shelf and pulled the book away to find the scroll exactly where he’d left it. Katara unrolled it and began reading immediately, and Zuko couldn’t avoid watching as her eyes flicked back and forth across the paper. It seemed both an instant and an eternity later that she lowered the scroll, her widened eyes shining with tears and her lips moving soundlessly. 

“Did…” Zuko felt dread slide into the pit of his stomach. “Did you not know about this?” 

Katara shook her head, but didn’t look at him. “No,” she replied absently. “I—I never knew.” The scroll crumpled in her hands as she clenched them into fists, her head dropping to her chest. “Hama was—” she sank to the floor, and Zuko felt himself follow. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, but she shook her head. 

“No, don’t be,” she replied. “Thank you for showing me this, Zuko. For being honest with me.” 

The sting in his heart was almost irrelevant next to the guilt that hammered at his brain. “Katara, there’s something—” Do it, Zuko. Just spit it out. Tell her the truth, you coward. 

“Hama told me about Unne,” Katara whispered roughly, wrapping her arms around her knees. “She told me all about her; that she was cowardly, that she was weak, that she was foolish. Unne’s waterbending never returned; she went mad as the years stretched on, and became obsessed with the fact that Hama was half firebender. But Hama showed no indications of it, and finally Unne became desperate enough that she blocked Hama’s chi. She stole her bending, Zuko. Hama was left powerless, and Unne regained her abilities. She taught Hama every firebending form she knew, but Hama had no firebending, and so they lapsed into misery and barely spoke to one another. This went on for decades; but all the while Hama was working in secret, regaining her waterbending. It took a very long time, but eventually her chi was unblocked, and on that day—she took her revenge, and murdered Unne.” 

Zuko’s mouth went dry, but the spark of his inner fire leapt in his chest. His fingers crept tentatively across her back, and she leaned into the crook of his shoulder, curling toward his chest, and it all felt so easy it almost hurt.

Kiss her. He sighed silently into her hair.

“Hama trained me and trained me, but nothing I ever did was good enough,” Katara said. “She didn’t care who I was, or what I wanted; she was obsessed with the secret of the waterbenders and told me that I would eventually have to steal another little girl from the tribe and raise her as my own, teach her everything I knew and pass the secret down. I refused to do it; I wouldn’t put anyone else through what I endured. But Hama didn’t care; she would just laugh—and her laugh was so awful, Zuko, I can’t stop hearing it some nights. I finally tried to run away, but I didn’t get far before Hama caught me. I’d never seen her so angry; she told me that I would never be able to outrun my destiny. Then she took me to a place deep beneath the fortress, and showed me the secret of the waterbenders, and then…” Katara swallowed. “She tried to take my bending away.” 

Zuko felt his heart stutter, and his arm tightened around her shoulders. 

Katara looked away, lost in horrors long buried in the darkest recesses of her memory, tears ready to fall from her eyes. “She was going to do it. I know she was. She said I needed to learn my lesson, that I’d be grateful for what she was about to do, just as she eventually became grateful when Unne had done it to her. You can’t outrun your destiny, Katara. It was horrible. Hama tried to steal my bending, and…” now she turned to meet his eyes, “...and I killed her.” 

There was a heavy beat of silence between them, but it spoke volumes on its own; Zuko could hear the shame, fear, trauma, denial, the crushing loneliness of it all. He wondered if she could see the same things in him; he wondered if they were enough to cover up the other truths all aching to be told, because he couldn’t keep them inside for very much longer, and all he could think was kiss her.  

“I—” What could he say? I’m sorry? I forgive you? I love you? How could he possibly put any of it into words—the way he wanted to wrap her in his arms, to tell her she wasn’t alone, to nurture the seed of her soul until forgiveness could bloom and thrive? 

But Katara shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything,” she murmured. “But...now you know.” She sounded profoundly resigned, settled into her misery, too exhausted to do anything but live with the self-loathing that would otherwise consume her. Zuko saw her sad smile, and he understood—there’s nobody better at hating you than you.  

“That’s why I don’t like destiny,” Katara whispered. “It frightens me, Zuko. I tried so hard to be everything that Hama wasn’t, and in the end I was just like her.” 

“I don’t think that,” Zuko offered. She looked up at him, eyes wide and shining, and suddenly the air between them seemed both hot and cold at the same time. 

Kiss her.  

“Unne loved Roku,” she whispered roughly. “I just...it’s so confusing. I’ve done everything I can to avoid a destiny I don’t want; and then you came along, and you were such a pest about destiny all the time. I thought you’d be gone in a few weeks, but—you weren’t. And we started working together, and I thought maybe things were going to be different, and then I—I was so upset when I found out you were a firebender, because then it was too late, and I was already—” 

Her eyes flicked down to his lips, and in an instant Zuko realized exactly why the letter had affected her so profoundly. The answer hit him like lightning a thousand times over, making every limb tingle; his heart was racing so fast he was sure she’d be able to tell. 

Kiss her.  

“Thank you for listening,” Katara eventually said, leaning over to press her lips to his unscarred cheek. “I’m sorry I woke you. You can go back to sleep, if you want.” 

Zuko couldn’t remotely fathom sleeping now, but he knew a polite attempt to escape conversation when he heard one. He bit his lip. 

“Katara, my destiny—” 

She shook her head. “I don’t want to hear about it, Zuko,” she sighed, clambering to her feet. “Whatever it is, I hope you fulfill it, and that it makes you happy. I really do.” 

“Wait—” Zuko rose to follow her, reaching forward to take Katara’s hand before she could walk away. Stay, he wanted to tell her. You’re not alone. I’m here. I don’t think I ever want to leave you.  

Kiss her, his mind insisted, and he didn’t deny that he wanted to do it quite badly. 

But instead he heard himself squawk: “Are you still angry with me?” He winced, waiting for the flash of anger in her eyes, but instead Katara just looked profoundly tired. 

“No, I suppose not,” she replied distantly. “We may as well forget that fight ever happened; it doesn’t matter, anyway. So—I’ll see you in the morning, Zuko.” And with that she placed the scroll carefully on the table beside them and left the library without looking back. 

Zuko drifted back to his room in a stupor, barely registering his footsteps in the mist. The storm had passed by now, and the moon was high and bright overhead. He stopped at his window, watching it, waiting for the ice crystals in his heart to shift and indicate that Katara had fallen asleep—but it never happened. Minutes crawled by and his heart remained stubbornly beating, heavy with the secrets that weighed down on him; and at some point, despite his best efforts, Zuko dozed off. 

In his nightmares, Zuko was watching Katara dance beneath the Southern Lights, a knife glinting in his hand. 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. 

This time he opened his fingers and tipped his wrist forward, watching as the blade tumbled out of his hand and disappeared into the snow. 

“Do you see now?” came Roku’s voice beside him. Zuko nodded, reluctantly tearing his gaze from Katara. 

Yes, he answered. I think I understand. 

Roku nodded solemnly. “I was a coward. I let my own anxieties consume me and destroy the woman I loved. I thought I knew my destiny, Zuko. But I was wrong.” 

Zuko felt a smile flit at the corner of his lips. I know the feeli—

“—Don’t be foolish, Prince Zuko,” the voice of his father rang in his ears as the world around them shifted and bled and reassembled itself into the throne room at the palace. Now Katara was suspended in chains, surrounded by a thick wall of fire, and Zuko darted towards her on pure instinct. 

Let her go! he shouted, but Ozai only laughed. 

“And what if I do? What will you do then, hmm? You’ll be nothing. You’ll never return to the Fire Nation. You will never truly be my son.” The condemnations rang as clear as an executioner’s blade hitting the chop block, but Zuko barely heard them. 

Then do it, he retorted. Let her go. Let me go. You’ll never have to see me again. I’m sure that will make you happy. 

“What do you think she’ll say when she finds out what you really are? She’ll hate you. Everyone else does.” 

That’s not true, he shook his head.

“Really? How do you know?” 

Zuko set his jaw. I don’t. But it doesn’t matter. 

“Kill the waterbender, Zuko. It’s your destiny,” Ozai sneered, and against all odds Zuko broke out laughing, his heart racing with the audacity of it. 

Yes, he replied. You’re right. It’s my destiny. 

The world shifted again, and his stomach dropped to his toes as it dawned on him: Mine. It’s mine. 

His father had mutilated him, banished him, humiliated him, terrorized him. Suddenly the idea of surrendering the course of his life to such a man seemed unimaginable. 

“Bring me the heart of the last waterbender,” his father snarled, but instead Zuko went to Katara and released her, pulling her into his arms and falling into the depths of her eyes. 

It’s my destiny, he whispered to her. Mine. 

Katara beamed, tilting her head up to kiss him with a contented sigh; and everything else fell away, because nothing else mattered.

Zuko awoke to find that the moon was shaded with the bright green and purple of the Southern Lights. In the distance he heard someone humming—a slow, faint rendition of the waltz he’d taught her, what seemed like a lifetime ago. 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.  

He found her in the courtyard, dancing on top of the water again, her feet splashing one-two-three and her face bathed in moonlight. 

Kiss her, his mind whispered, but instead he walked right up to the pond and hopped in, hissing through his teeth as the icy water came up to his shins. 

Katara opened her eyes at the sound. “Zuko? What are you—” 

“—I’m a prince,” he interrupted her, wading across to where she was standing, staring up at her without regard for how silly he must look. “I’m the crown prince of the Fire Nation. My father is Fire Lord Ozai, son of Azulon; my mother is Ursa, daughter of Rina, and granddaughter of Roku.” 

Katara dropped down to meet him, the water climbing up her skirts as her bare feet brushed against his. “Wait, you’re—” her face fell. “You’re...Roku’s great-grandson?”

He nodded. “On my mother’s side.” 

“ No, ” she whispered, voice thick with tears, hands curled into trembling fists. “I just—spirits, Zuko, I have feelings that—I can’t believe—” the words died on her lips as Zuko reached out and cupped her face in his hands, their foreheads pressed together. He couldn’t miss the hitch in Katara’s breath as his thumb whispered across her cheek. 

Kiss her, his mind whispered, but instead he took a deep breath, feeling his heartbeat flutter against his skin. 

“Seven years ago my father gave me this scar, and then he banished me from the Fire Nation,” he said softly. “Ever since then I’ve been obsessed with my destiny, with regaining my honour and taking my place as his rightful heir. That’s why I came to the South Pole. My father sent me on a fool’s quest, to search for something he thought I’d never find. I don’t—” he swallowed. “I don’t know if he even wanted me to come back.”

Katara squeezed her eyes shut, even as her hands crept up to curl around his neck. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked, her voice quavering.

Zuko caressed the skin of her temple. “Because I know you’re scared of your destiny, and—” 

“This isn’t helping,” she managed in a weak whisper.

“But I was wrong,” he murmured. “Katara, think about it: we’re all alone at the bottom of the world, with nothing but ice and snow and the Southern Lights for company, and somehow chance rolls the dice?”

She sniffed. “You’re really not very good at this comforting thing—”

“—but that’s just it,” he couldn’t help but grin. “We’ve both felt trapped by destiny, but I don’t think destiny is something that traps you. I think it’s something you choose to make for yourself.” 

Now her eyes opened, clear and blue and shining with an emotion he was no longer afraid to name—the same leaping song that sang in his heart, his pulse fluttering in perfect time with hers, a moment they’d been waltzing towards for what seemed like forever.

“Do you really think so?” she breathed, her lips very nearly grazing his skin. 

“Yeah,” he replied with a nod. “And I’m choosing this.” 

Kiss her, his mind whispered. 

So he did.

Chapter Text

Later, Zuko knew, he would remember the little things: the tiny sound Katara made as her mouth opened under his, the sensation of her hands carding into his hair, and how he felt like he’d been struck by lightning in the very best possible way. He’d remember that everything suddenly went quiet inside his mind, as the fever that had been building abruptly broke and the thoughts that had plagued him for so long all melted into one single aching desire. He would remember pulling away reluctantly to suck air into desperate lungs, and the terrifying heartbeat of silence before Katara crashed back into him, kissing him so hard that he nearly lost his balance on his rapidly numbing feet. 

It was all so perfect that, in hindsight, Zuko knew it was all going to fall apart. 

He wound his arms around her, their movements scored by the sound of chilly water splashing at their shins; one of Katara’s hands wandered down to rest over his heart, and in that moment his pulse seemed to beat warmer than it had in months. But before the kiss could deepen any further, she pulled away, leaving their foreheads pressed together but her lips infuriatingly out of reach. 

Zuko barely registered the needy sound that escaped his throat. “Katara—” 

“—wait,” she whispered thickly. “Just...wait.” 

“It’s okay,” he replied, unable to stop himself from beaming. “You don’t have to worry anymore. You’re not—” 

“—Zuko.” This time there was a distinct edge to her voice; it pierced abruptly through the rosy haze in his mind, and then everything seemed to go cold all at once.

Oh, no.  

It all unfolded in slow motion: Katara pulling away, the Southern Lights fading in his periphery, the tidal wave of rejection that rose up high over his head and crashed down with enough force to break a ship to pieces. 

“Katara, I…” Zuko felt his throat close over anything else he could possibly say. She was out of the pond now, leaving him standing there with ice water creeping up the legs of his trousers, and he felt his anger burst alight like dry tinder. 

“I’m sorry, Zuko,” she was saying, “I just...I need to think.” 

“About what?!” he snapped, sloshing to the edge of the pond and climbing out. He thought he heard a faltering part of him whisper stop , but it rapidly disappeared beneath the churn of all the other thoughts crowding his mind—each decidedly more self-destructive than the last, and all positively begging to catch aflame. 

“This! All of this!” Katara exclaimed. “You’re the son of the Fire Lord, you’re related to Roku, and Roku—” she went ashen, and for a moment couldn’t seem to speak. “I just need time. Alone.” 

“Where do you always run off to, anyway?” he snarled. “It’s the most immature thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Katara’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?” 

Zuko didn’t even pretend to resist against the roar of anger swelling inside of him. For the first time in months, he felt like there was fire in his veins. “You’re such a hypocrite! I’ve been honest with you—not at first, I mean, but—but now I have! And you won’t tell me the truth, and you clearly don’t want—” he cut himself off, his cheeks burning with shame. Clouds were gathering overhead, blotting out the moon and stars, leaving only the lamps to illuminate a few spots in the gloom of the courtyard. 

Katara’s expression hardened. “I cannot believe you’re making this about you,” she hissed. “But I shouldn’t be surprised, because you always make everything about you. I probably should have guessed the whole prince thing too, because it sure explains…” she paused, gesturing up and down at him with one hand, “all of this.” 

Zuko recoiled, too stunned to respond. He exhaled a thin stream of sharp-smelling smoke. 

“Glad to see your firebending’s coming back,” Katara snapped. 

“Are you?” Zuko retorted, clenching his hands into fists. “Because it sure doesn’t sound like it!”

She sighed in exasperation. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s complicated, Zuko. I only just learned that everything I thought I knew about Unne and Roku was a lie. Can’t you understand why I might need a minute to process that?” 

Zuko was pacing back and forth now, trampling the snow beneath his feet. “You keep saying it’s complicated,” he charged, “but you won’t ever tell me why. You keep alluding to this mysterious secret of the waterbenders, like—like you’re toying with me. And when I ask you a perfectly reasonable question, you tell me it’s complicated, run away, then I beat myself up for however long it takes until you decide to come waltzing back, at which point we talk about our feelings for a while, I make some kind of ridiculous promise to you, and then we pretend as if nothing happened. It’s exhausting.”

Her nostrils flared with anger. “Can you hear yourself right now?” 

“Yes!” Zuko cried explosively, “I can! There’s no one else around, so who else could be talking?!” 

“That’s not what I meant,” Katara shot back. 

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why are you still holding onto these secrets, if they’re hurting you so badly? Why not just let them go? Why not choose another destiny for yourself?” 

“I want to,” Katara said thickly, “but we both know it’s not that simple.” 

“Why not?” 

The ferocity in her glare shimmered behind the tears standing in her eyes. “The Southern Water Tribe has survived for the past hundred years because they believe in the waterbender’s story. They believe that her power reaches deep into the pack ice and spreads in every direction; they believe that she brings good weather, calms the storms, makes life just a little bit easier.” Her voice was filled with bitterness. “She reminds them that they’re not alone. She gives them hope.” 

“How could you possibly know that?” Zuko sneered. “Because from what I heard, people think you’re an old woman with a heart made of gold, if you exist at all.” 

Katara set her jaw. “Because I can feel them, Zuko. When I close my eyes, I can feel the whole tribe. Their voices, their dreams, their terrors, everything. The secret, it—” she swallowed. “I will never turn my back on people who need me. I...can’t walk away from this.” 

“I’m not asking you to,” Zuko said, “but this is what I mean when I talk about honesty, Katara. Why can’t you just tell me?” 

“This isn’t a joke,” she whispered. “There’s so much I just don’t know. There are so many things I believed that have turned out to be lies.” 

Oh for Agni’s sake. Zuko began to pace again. “Well, maybe this hasn’t occurred to you, but I’m stuck here until my heart heals, and there isn’t a whole lot else to do to pass the time, so maybe I could help you figure it out!” he cried, throwing his hands up in frustration. 

“Or,” Katara replied icily, “maybe you’d go running back to your father with a much bigger prize than he asked for.” 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. 

Zuko stopped dead, his entire body ablaze with poisonous fury, his veins churning with the bitter tang of it. He opened his mouth, but no sounds came out, leaving the silence to stretch out far too long and then continue stretching some more. Through it all Katara’s eyes were filled with tears, but they never fell. A single flake of snow dropped down between them. 

“I really thought you’d understand,” she whispered. 

And then she was gone. 

Zuko was unable to do anything but tremble for what seemed like a very long time, overcome with humiliation so strong that it was difficult to breathe. He willed his feet to move, but he was frozen in place as solidly as if Katara herself had encased him in ice. 

All those times his mind whispered kiss her now seemed laughable in hindsight; the memories he had tried so hard to commit to memory now taunted him in his father’s voice. How could you ever think she’d say yes? You’re the first man she’s seen in Agni knows how long, but she’d still rather be alone than with you. 

Fury erupted through his veins like fire racing across a dry forest; Zuko snapped his fingers, swallowing as a flame appeared in his palm. He closed his eyes, breathing harshly through his nostrils, letting the feelings build up and up and up inside of him until he was sure he would burst; then he shoved his hands forward to create a fireball, a cry of exertion slipping unbidden from his lips as he did—

—only to summon just a tiny squirt of flame, which dissipated into smoke that smelled like failure. 

What?!

A guttural cry escaped him as he punched his arms forward one after the other, producing nothing but feeble sparks. Zuko stopped in his tracks and snapped his trembling fingers—nothing. His adrenaline abruptly evaporated, and he sat back against the walled edge of the pond with a heavy sigh.

How many times had his uncle Iroh taught him to process his emotions through his firebending? Zuko didn’t even realize how much of his anger and depression and fear had erupted out of him in bursts of flame until now, when he needed it most. The absence of his bending made the roiling emotions seem so much stronger, the anxiety trapped like steam with no vent. It was a feeling that was equal parts familiar and foreign—an old friend whose embrace suddenly felt like that of a stranger, awkwardly betraying the time they’d spent apart. 

Because wasn’t this exactly what he always did? He was angry now. He was embarrassed and regretful. He was torn between wanting to light the world on fire and wanting the earth to swallow him whole. These were the emotions that had dominated Zuko’s whole adult life; these feelings, more than anything else, were fuel he knew he could burn. 

So why can’t I?

Zuko tipped his head back against the edge of the pond and looked up at the snow softly falling from above, wrinkling his nose as a snowflake landed on him. This wasn’t like the dreadful cold emptiness he’d felt when he first lost his bending; there was definitely a flame burning inside of him—small, but steady, like the sages’ clock candles in the great library back home. Maybe part of the problem lay in simple geography; he hadn’t seen the sun in months, and it was hard enough to regain his abilities without being able to connect to that primordial fire. But there was more to it than that; in the Fire Nation, every day brought with it new possibilities—new battles to be won, new problems to solve, new challenges to overcome. The South Pole moved so much slower, its days and nights stretching for months at a time, and its people so accustomed to constant change that their ambitions never stretched beyond where to move their tents—

Zuko frowned. That isn’t right, he thought. He knew that now; he was perhaps the first firebender in a hundred years who knew the truth, buried and forgotten at the bottom of the world. The more he read about the ancient Southern Water Tribe, the more similar it seemed to the hot and humid place he called his home. These people once had grand palaces and innovative ideas, just as the Fire Nation did. Until we took it away. 

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine an entire icy continent of fortresses just as grand as this one. Of streets filled with people, and of a population where benders were just as common as they were in Caldera. But every time he did, he heard his father’s voice cackling in the back of his mind and all but felt the scorch of the fire as it descended to destroy what had been beautiful and balanced and good. 

Zuko made a face, willing Ozai’s spectre away. Anger seemed to suit his father; he didn’t just grit his teeth and push through it like Zuko did. In fact, Ozai seemed to relish it, to take a perverse pleasure in the misery and pain he wrought. His father’s bending was always neatly held together by the barest modicum of control, but Zuko couldn’t get angry like that; he was always tripping over his emotions all along the way, making the rigidity of firebending seem like a prison from which he could never quite escape. Everywhere he went during his exile, he’d seen the invisible bars of the cage: they were in the rough dry heat of the southern Earth Kingdom, in the wary glares of the waterbenders at the North Pole, in every port and village and scrap of civilization where everyone knew who he was and why he was there. The whole world had always seemed intent on reminding Zuko of his failures—except for here. 

He opened his eyes, blinking away snowflakes, and took a deep breath of crisp air that filled his lungs and made everything seem quiet and cool. He raised his hand up in front of his face, and—snap.  

Whoosh.  

Zuko sat back up so quickly that he nearly pulled a muscle, his gaze transfixed on the ball of bright yellow fire sitting contentedly in his palm. Its flames licked upwards and tickled the base of his fingers; he felt his heart in his throat, the heat kissing the line of his jaw as he looked closer. 

“Hello,” he heard himself croak, cupping the fire in both hands. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.” 

It seemed like another life entirely, a dream of sunshine snatched in fitful hours between the fantastical nightmares of slumber and the more mundane nightmares of a waking world where the night never ended. After a few tense breaths, Zuko rose carefully to his feet, his eyes never leaving the flame in his palm. He turned and backed up into the empty expanse of the courtyard, his knees bending wide as he gave a quick roll of his shoulders. 

Please, he silently said to the fire. Please stay with me. I can’t lose you again.  

The firebending forms came back to him automatically, locked into his muscle memory as surely as his own name: here a decisive kick with the outside edge of the foot, there a sweep of the arm ending in a burst of forward motion. Through it all, his little ball of flame flickered— at least it isn’t getting blown out, he thought—but as he kept moving Zuko realized that his heart wasn’t in it. The movements were familiar, but no longer comfortable; they settled onto his shoulders like heavy spirits, making everything seem stilted and awkward. It was hard to focus; his mind kept wandering, flitting out of the moment as soon as each form ended and forcing him to pause and re-center before he could move on. Maybe it was his ice-encased heart, or the still-weak flow of his chi, or the lingering flickers of shame when Katara rose to his mind; no matter the excuse, Zuko couldn’t shake the hollow and burnt sense of emptiness inside his core. He screwed his eyes shut. 

Maybe his heart would never heal entirely. Maybe his bending would never really return. Maybe things would never go back to normal. Zuko raised his hands close to his face and breathed in the heat of the fire he held—a life hanging in perilous balance, where a single puff of air could nurture it to bloom or snuff it out into darkness. He imagined the sun shining on his face, and tried to remember what normal was ever supposed to be. 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.  

There was a shadow of familiarity hanging to the moment; no matter how much he hated to admit it, there was something bitterly recognizable about struggling to firebend. In a sense, it was a truer birthright than a crown on his head or mastery over his element; Zuko had been struggling for most of his life, and things never seemed to get any easier. Navigating the world felt like a constant swim against a roaring tide—but down here at the pole, where direction was meaningless, things felt different. Colder; slower; eternal, in a way. No wonder Katara felt trapped in her destiny; the entire fortress seemed to be frozen in time and space, the anguished ghosts of the past howling their sorrow through the halls and empty rooms. 

Zuko had never heard Unne’s voice, but it seemed to echo through the air anyhow, whispering: I think it was his bending that I fell in love with first.

How must it have felt to Roku, knowing that someone saw his bending as beautiful and magical instead of deadly and destructive? Did he feel this confused and lost, down here in the dark? And, most hauntingly of all: why did he run?  

Zuko furrowed his brow, trying to imagine what could possibly lie beneath the fortress that would convince Roku to act with such cowardice. It couldn’t be treasure, or anything of value; were that the case, he would have taken it back in a victory for the Fire Nation. It couldn’t be a weapon, or else he would have reported it as a tactical advantage of a potential enemy, to be eliminated at all costs. So what was it—a curse? A monster? A portal to the spirit world? A trick of the Southern Lights? 

Or was Roku just terrified at the thought of how easy it would be to give himself to Unne entirely—to abandon everything he used to call home, to surrender to her pull like the tides to the moon and let her cool dark embrace soothe all the parts of him that burned too hot and flared too bright?

I think it was his bending that I fell in love with first.

Of all the unbelievable things he’d read in the library, that was the one that seemed the most absurd. Firebending wasn’t something beautiful for Zuko; it was a fight and a struggle and a scramble for power and talent, a game he’d lost long before he even knew he was playing. It was the searing agony and the acrid smell of his own blackened flesh; it was years and years of merciless drills and mock battles, of learning to ground himself despite the sea swaying constantly beneath him. As the snow crunched underfoot now, it occurred to Zuko that he’d grown so used to feeling off-kilter that he didn’t truly remember what it was to be firmly rooted in place. In that sense, maybe Katara was right to say he would be a good waterbender; he was more than accustomed to balancing on the razor-thin blade of change. 

Katara.

He couldn’t stop thinking of her standing on the surface of the pond—the push-pull of her hands, the graceful curve of her arms over her head, the gentle splash of her feet as she moved. No matter how many times Katara insisted that her bending was a burden, Zuko knew how much she loved it; he’d seen it on her face, that very first night he found her here. And waterbending was beautiful; it was creative and flexible and impossibly resilient, entrancing and infuriating in equal measure. It was all of the things Zuko couldn’t see in himself, and perhaps that’s why he could never get that image of Katara out of his head. He’d dreamed about it so many times that it almost didn’t seem real anymore; seeing her bending on the pond tonight had seemed so much like a sign, but—

Wait. Just...wait.  

The memory of water splashing at his shins threatened to shatter him, and on pure instinct Zuko threw out his right hand and imagined the crackle of anxious static passing through his core, snaking along his arm and fingers, and getting flung back out into the night. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, straightening his knees; his arms softened as he tried to protect his flickering flame, his joints complaining at the sudden lack of tension—and when he stopped, Zuko found himself standing in the same position as the waterbending form Katara had taught him. 

Without opening his eyes, he began to rock back and forth in the push-pull movement; the last time he’d done it, he’d felt stilted and awkward. But now he could hear the gentle lap of the water in the pond; he could feel the softening crunch of snow as it compacted and melted beneath his feet; he could see Katara in his mind’s eye, bending the stars, as if the entire sky was an endless ocean and she was the moon holding every droplet in thrall. 

I think it was his bending that I fell in love with first.  

There was a short burst of heat in front of his fact, but Zuko didn’t stop; instead he thought one-two-three and pivoted on his feet, sweeping his hands in an arc, and he swore he felt his fireball plume out between his fingers like a phoenix’s unfurling tail. He moved again, imagining all the lightning bolts of misery and pain that threatened to strike him, bracing against their impact and redirecting it away—back and forth, as sure as the tide. He thought of all the time he’d snapped awake just as his dream of Katara died in his arms; he thought of rising from ash, pale and naked and born anew. 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender. 

A crackle of terror, a fierce bolt of jagged light pulled from the deepest recesses of his nightmares. Zuko thought of the sheer power in Katara’s hands, of how one tiny flick of her wrist could summon snowstorms and freeze snow in midair. He imagined absorbing everything that frightened him, letting it curl inside his gut like a whirling tidepool, and then pushing it back out of his body and watching it strike the sky. With another smooth push of his hands, Zuko thought of rising seas and crashing waves, and for the tiniest moment he imagined himself raising them—

There was a small gasp from the corner of the courtyard—tiny, but enough to break his concentration and snuff out the fire in his hands; so with a long and silent sigh, Zuko opened his eyes, just barely able to glimpse Katara’s face in the rapidly fading light. She was standing at the edge of the courtyard, mouth so ever agape as she stared at him. 

“What were you doing?” she blurted. 

I don’t know, he tried to answer—but he was frozen to the spot, his mouth glued shut and his heart hammering in his throat. There were so many things Zuko wanted to tell her, so many touches and gestures he wanted to wish he could take back—all the regret he felt clashing with the things he couldn’t bring himself to regret at all. He didn’t know what to say, and couldn’t even fathom where to start, so instead Zuko did what he swore he’d never do again: he knelt. 

“Zuko?”

The ice was smooth against his forehead, the cold spearing through the skin to give him a headache; but he stayed prostrate, trying and failing to forget the last time he’d asked an impossible question of a person he deeply feared would never love him. 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.  

“I’m sorry for how I acted,” he said, his voice ringing clear through the courtyard. “You were right; I thought only of myself, and I should have given your feelings more consideration. I…” he swallowed. “I’d like to pretend none of this ever happened. Let’s just go back to training, and—”

And what? Zuko didn’t know, so he bit his lip and listened to his pulse thudding in his ears. He heard nothing else for one, two, three breaths; his shins ached from the hard ice beneath him and the silence began to feel stifling, but he forced himself to stay put. His fingertips melted tiny divots into the ice as the heat was pulled out of him by the hungry cold. 

Please, Zuko thought, scrabbling for the word and holding on like a drowning man. Please. Please. Please.  

There was a rustle of clothing close by his ears, and a sigh that sank close to the ground. Eventually Zuko chanced a sideways look between his bangs and saw Katara sitting primly in front of him, her hands folded in her lap. It seemed as if she was made of ice, her body and face so still that she may as well have been sculpted; every breath of silence between them carried the weight of a thousand conversations that neither could bring themselves to start. 

“Please get up,” she finally whispered; he was helpless but to obey, blinking as the blood rushed out of his head and black spots danced across his vision. 

He swallowed. “Are you—”

“—I don’t like that,” Katara interrupted him, her voice caught between anger and anguish. “I don’t like being begged. I’m not nobility, and I’m not a god; I’m just me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Zuko breathed, resigned to an odd sort of comfort as guilt began to consume him; at least this dynamic felt familiar, even if that familiarity tasted bitter and metallic on his tongue. 

“What were you doing, just now?” she asked, just barely managing to keep her voice neutral. 

“I promise I wasn’t making fun of you,” he rasped. 

“Those were my forms,” Katara said, so terrifyingly stoic that Zuko felt himself quaver at the mere thought of all the emotions that might be boiling under her skin. “I’ve never seen you move like that. I’ve never seen anyone move like that.” 

Zuko had no idea how to answer, but he opened his mouth anyway. “Can I ask you something?” he heard himself say, and against all his expectations Katara nodded. 

“Yes.”

“When you waterbend, are you...happy?” 

A smile flickered across Katara’s face too quick for her to smother it, and against his will Zuko thought kiss her. It was so much louder now that he knew what it felt like to have her in his arms, and he pinched the flesh of his thigh to yank himself back into the present. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever considered it,” Katara answered. “Why do you ask?” 

Zuko rubbed his middle finger and thumb together, imagining sparks bristling between them, waiting to be snapped to life. “My uncle once told me that firebending is the element of power. ‘The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will, and the energy to drive and achieve what they want,’ is how he put it. At the time, I thought I understood what he was saying: that power was the same thing as dominance, and that desire and will were driven by ruthlessness. The fire nation has waged war against the rest of the world by harnessing all that energy, and all they do with it is destroy things.” When he sighed, Zuko felt his whole body sag under the weight of it—his shoulders curling inwards, head hanging down, neck seized tight with shame, his voice barely a whisper. “I’ve been angry for as long as I can remember.” 

He flinched as he felt Katara’s fingers ghost across the back of his tunic, her touch impossibly light on his shoulders; he couldn’t be sure if she was working any healing magic or not, but his muscles relaxed nonetheless, easing the tension that was paralyzing him. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said softly. 

“I know Unne’s letter made you upset, and I think I understand why,” Zuko ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been...thinking a lot, lately. Maybe too much.” 

Now Katara let the smile linger on her face, and a blush rose to the tops of her cheeks. “Me too,” she admitted, her hand lingering on his back for a moment too long. “What have you been thinking about?” 

Kiss her. Zuko pinched himself again before he answered. 

“I guess I never realized that anyone could see firebending that way—as something to be loved, instead of just admired or feared.” He snapped his fingers and watched his little flame dance across his fingertips, before snuffing it out with a faint fwip as he closed his hand into a fist. “All this time I’ve been trying to bend again, but it hasn’t been right. I can’t get angry, not the way I used to.” 

Katara smirked. “If you want, I can pester you until you’re properly annoyed. I’ve been told I’m very good at it,” she teased softly, and Zuko’s heart leapt to his throat as his pulse thundered kiss her kiss her kiss her in his ears. He managed to shake his head. 

“Thanks for the offer, but...I don’t think I want to firebend like that anymore.” 

It seemed almost anticlimactic, how easily the words left his lips. He half expected them to hang in midair, to choke him like thick black smoke; but instead all he felt was a lightness in his chest and a sense of clarity in his mind, as if it really was just that simple. It wasn’t simple, of course; firebending was complicated and messy and horrifying and difficult, and Zuko had fought his whole life against the creeping suspicion that he would never truly master the element that was his birthright. It was just another example of his fundamental insufficiency; the ease with which the revelation was spoken only made him feel smaller. 

There was another long beat of silence before Katara closed her eyes, took a breath, and then opened them. 

“Do it again.” 

“I’m sorry?” Zuko furrowed his brow. 

She stood, holding out a hand to pull him up. “Firebend again,” she instructed, and Zuko could all but see the cogs turning in her head. “Like you were doing before, incorporating the waterbending forms.” 

He suddenly felt very naked, and he rubbed the back of his neck as he felt his cheeks burn. “I, um. Why?” 

Something flashed across Katara’s eyes, an emotion he couldn’t quite read. “Because there’s something I need to understand about my destiny.” 

“Is that all the explanation I’m going to get?” he cocked an eyebrow. 

The flickering lamps cast dancing shadows on her mischievous smirk. “For now.” 

Zuko snapped his fingers, rolling the fireball around in his palm for a moment. “And what’s in it for me?” 

Katara flexed her palm and summoned a ball of water roughly the same size. “If I’m right? A new way to firebend. If you want one.” 

It was suddenly very difficult to swallow, night impossible to breathe without his shoulders shaking. Zuko closed his eyes and sank into a ready stance. 

“Go slow,” he heard her say. “I’m going to mirror you.” 

“Okay.” He began to move through the basic firebending forms, peppered with the few waterbending tricks he’d seen her do, steeling himself for the strange and awkward sense of discomfort again—but instead he found himself changing the movements in little ways, acting entirely on instinct. The slow pace now seemed contemplative, the knowledge that she was bending with him a buoy to keep him afloat against the tides of doubt and self-consciousness. So Zuko let his body move as it wished; a punch was smoothed into a sweeping arc of the arm, his weight shifting back in anticipation of a forward shove. A new way to firebend.  

Sparks fizzed in midair as he swept around, and he let himself smile as he gave himself over to the flow of it; his movements became smoother with every breath, and he could hear Katara match his footprints in the snow and his exhales of exertion. She always seemed to know where to go without doubt or worry; it was so strange to have such quiet confidence, to be able to change your entire strategy on a dime, to regard one’s element as something other than an adversary. Zuko had fought with his fire for so long, lost it and mourned it and desperately clung to the embers that remained; he’d kept himself buried and squirrelled away, pushed down beneath layers of shame and fear and grief. But now, at the bottom of the world, all that seemed very far away. 

I think it was his bending that I fell in love with first.  

There was a kiss of warmth on his face, the inside of his eyelids lit peach—red, a burst of dry air that smelled like fresh smoke. He raised one hand up to the sky and summoned the memory of Katara’s beatific smile, of how she stood surrounded by water droplets suspended in place by the sheer power of her love. He heard her footsteps in close time with his and thought of a waltz that cut through the whirling fog, and of how it was so much easier to see where he was going when he knew she was there by his side. He searched for the cold and frozen pieces of his heart and imagined them twinkling like diamonds, cradled and kept and waiting to change. He dared to imagine the sight of the sun on the horizon. 

“Zuko,” came Katara’s voice, “open your eyes.” 

First he saw her standing in front of him, her eyes twinkling with starlight he could swear hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. Then he looked around, and felt his jaw drop as he took in the brilliant plumes of light hanging like elegant curtains in midair, painted with the eerie green and pink and blue of the Southern Lights. A mix of sparks and water droplets were frozen in place all around them, reflecting off every facet of ice and fleck of snow to illuminate the courtyard in a million pinpoints of light. The colours shifted and blurred in between, shimmering bright enough to hurt his eyes if he looked too long. 

“What…”

Katara tentatively reached out to touch one of the sparks, a gasp escaping her lips as it moved under her hand. She swept her arm a little wider, and the pinpoints of light swirled and parted around her; emboldened, she stepped into the fray and twirled around, her face lit up with sheer wonder. Zuko felt his jaw drop as he touched one of the shimmering droplets, watching the colours bounce off his hand. Katara reached forward, her fingers brushing against the skin of his palm, and suddenly the thousands of pinpoints of fire and water shot up above their heads and bloomed out wide, filling the entire sky with vivid light and colour. The display stretched from horizon to horizon, all but blotting out the stars, and as he craned his neck to try and take it all in, he felt Katara slip her hand into his. 

“What did you do?” Zuko finally croaked, but she shook her head. 

“I didn’t,” she replied. “We did.”

Chapter Text

“We?”

Katara nodded, businesslike. “Sure seems that way.” 

It sounded utterly ridiculous, but as he watched the lights bloom overhead, Zuko knew deep in his bones that she was right. There was something visceral about the display, something that reached deep into his core and tugged at a primal well of energy that didn’t even have a name. The lights called to him in strange silence, as sure as an echo of his own voice. 

“How? I don’t—” Zuko stopped as things began to click into place, the words still just barely bubbling to the surface of his mind. 

He made fire seem so beautiful, like a spark of life and magic.  

“Did you know this would happen?” he rasped. Katara shook her head. 

“No,” she answered. “But...I suspected. Unne’s letter said so many things, and—well. It seems that at least some of my theories are right.” 

Zuko squinted, imagining all the little scraps of knowledge floating around in his head like dazzling sparks. They scattered and floated, bouncing off one another without purpose or meaning, until they suddenly coalesced in a bright flash of epiphany. 

“Unne wasn’t trying to protect the secret; she was trying to use it,” he turned to Katara. “You said the lights changed after she fled to the Pole, right? Have the lights been this way ever since the ritual was—interrupted?” the word landed with a near-audible thud between them, the air suddenly thick with choking awkwardness. 

“When he left,” Katara eventually corrected him, her voice horribly quiet. 

“Yes,” Zuko nodded. 

She turned, gazing up once again at the display shimmering above them, and the twinkling lights shone like a million diamonds on her face. 

“Unne brought Roku here. She told him the secret. Out of all the people in the world, she trusted one of the highest-ranking members of the Fire Nation court. She thought it could prevent the war from ever happening in the first place, and then—” Katara huffed. “You’ve never heard of the waterbender’s secret? Not even as a story passed down by your mother? Nothing at all?” 

“Believe me, I wish,” he breathed, entranced as tendrils of blue and pink light coalesced overhead into shimmering lilac. “I can’t even imagine how different my li—how different everything could have been if we knew this was possible. I don’t even think my uncle knew.” 

She bit her lip. “I can’t believe that Roku never said a word. He could have had everyone at the South Pole slaughtered, but he didn’t. Why?” 

The answer came to him, a sudden but clear shift in his chest: oh.  

“Because he loved her,” Zuko murmured as he watched the sparks swirl and sway. “And I think he spent the rest of his life regretting that he didn’t stay by her side.” 

Katara raised an eyebrow. “How could you possibly know that?” 

A crooked smile crept across his face. “He’s my great-grandfather. Poor life choices run in my family.” 

“Now that I believe,” she smirked, pausing to blow on a stray spark. They watched it rise into the air, where it met a droplet of water and both disappeared in a faint puff of smoke. 

“It’s almost as if she’s been trying to tell me this whole time,” Katara whispered. “Like they painted the sky with their story.” 

“They flow and shift like liquid, but they’re bright like fire,” Zuko breathed, sitting down on the snow and craning his neck to see the sky better. “Like I said, the North Pole has nothing on this.” 

“Then they’re missing out,” Katara said, sinking down to sit beside him—close enough to be personable, but not enough to touch. 

“Maybe we could take this show on the road. I’m sure we’d be a big hit.” 

Now Katara’s face fell, and Zuko winced at the rush of embarrassment as he realized what he’d said. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I didn’t mean to—I know you can’t leave. I wasn’t trying to be difficult.” 

“It’s okay,” she shrugged, turning her face back to the scene overhead. “I just don’t know why this all has to be so complicated. Why couldn’t I just be a normal girl in a normal village, with a normal family and normal problems?” 

Zuko reached out to cover her hand with his, and then thought the better of it. “Would you truly rather be ordinary? No bending at all?” 

Katara looked incredulous. “Wouldn’t you? No father to hate you, no scar, no banishment? What if you just had a simple, decent life?” 

“Then I never would have met you,” he said, feeling his cheeks burn as the words slipped out. But then she blushed too, a tiny tinge of pink dusted across the top of her cheekbones, almost invisible in the chaos of colour that surrounded them. 

“I suppose that’s true,” she whispered, tracing a finger absently through the snow beside her. “And...I don’t regret that.”

Kiss her. Zuko swallowed. 

“Y-you don’t?”

Katara shook her head, very studiously avoiding eye contact. “No. I’m just...very confused right now.” 

“That’s...that’s okay, though. It’s okay to be confused.” 

She made a noncommittal noise. “Is it?” 

Zuko raked his hand through his hair. “I can’t speak for everyone, but my life has been confusing more often than not.” 

“How do you stand it?” 

He let his fingertips skitter across the scar tissue at his brow, wondering how it must look in the the billions of pinpoint lights above. Surrounded by such splendour, the rippled skin would surely seem black and dead and hideous—but somehow, when he was around Katara, Zuko found that he couldn’t think of himself that way anymore. 

“You can only ever do what you think is right,” he eventually answered. “Even if you turn out to be wrong.” 

Katara took a deep breath, finally looking up to meet his eyes. “You read the letter,” she said softly, waiting for him to nod before continuing. “You know everything that happened to Unne. I can’t go through that, Zuko. I won’t go through that.” 

“I know,” he whispered. 

She swallowed. “The thing is...I think you might be wrong about destiny. Because you coming here, being Roku’s descendent, being the son of the Fire Lord—it’s not just a coincidence. It can’t be. And that means that the secret—” she stood up, turning away with her head hanging. “You say it like it’s so easy: do the right thing, even when you might be wrong. But...”

Zuko held his breath as she trailed off, his hand clenching into the snow for purchase and finding none. 

“I don’t know what’s more terrifying,” Katara finally whispered. “Either being trapped here my entire life and kidnapping a little girl to replace me, or actually trying to do what Unne couldn’t.” 

He swallowed the painful lump in his throat and clambered to his feet, unable to keep the questions on the tip of his tongue any longer. 

“The waterbender’s secret...it requires a firebender, doesn’t it? Roku wasn’t just in the right place at the right time.” He took a step towards her. 

Katara remained very still before she turned to face him and nodded. “Yes.” 

“And that’s why you wanted to learn my forms.” Another step. 

“Yes.”

“And you think—” he took a deep breath. “You think that I’m the one who can complete it with you.”

“Zuko—” 

There was a too-long pause, his pulse roaring in his ears. Zuko felt his face fall. 

“I see.” 

Katara shook her head. “Not because—I mean, I—” she sighed. “You chased your destiny for seven years before deciding to change it. I’ve spent my whole life running from mine, and it always seems to catch up with me, and I don’t know if I can…” she trailed off, and the silence between them stretched thick and tense; she reached up and brushed her fingers across his scarred brow, and Zuko just barely stopped himself from leaning into her touch, instead bringing his hand up to gently close around her wrist.

“What do you want, Katara?” he heard himself ask, pulling her hand from his face. 

She frowned. “What do you mean?” 

“What do you want from me? If it’s not the secret, and it’s not...” he swallowed and tried again. “What happens now?” 

“I don’t know,” Katara admitted. “I can’t imagine you’ll forget any of this anytime soon.” 

A new way to firebend.

Zuko shot her a sideways glance. “Will you?” 

A tiny pink spark landed in her hair as she shook her head. “Not in a million years,” she said. “But...I don’t know if we should do this again. It’s—too much.”

It was as if she’d snuffed out a candle, leaving just a bitter tang of smoke in the darkness. Zuko forced his head up and down in a nod. 

“Well,” he exhaled. “Then. I should, um. I guess I’ll go back to bed.” 

“Will I see you tomorrow?” she blurted, her eyes flashing with an emotion that seemed tantalizingly close to longing, but was probably just a trick of the light. Zuko turned away. 

“Where else would I be?” he finally replied. “You’ve got training, after all.” 

There was silence except for the crunch of the snow under his feet as he began to walk away, his palms slick with sweat as he clenched his hands into trembling fists. Just a little further. Don’t let her see you break.

“...Zuko?” 

Now her voice was smaller, more timid, and tinged with such fright and regret that he couldn’t help but turn back.  

“Yes?” 

Katara’s eyes were still shining. “What happens if you’re wrong?” 

“What do you mean?” 

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I mean...what if you do what you think is right, and then you end up being wrong? What happens then?” 

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.  

“Then you learn a lesson,” Zuko said softly, “and if you’re lucky, you don’t get burned.” 

In his dreams, Zuko was watching the horizon—vast and dark and utterly devoid of stars. Katara stood by his side, their fingers intertwined. 

“Are you ready?” she whispered, and Zuko nodded. 

Yes, he breathed, raising his free hand in perfect time with her. They snapped their fingers simultaneously, and the world exploded into bright plumes of colour, cool flames that gently caressed their skin. Zuko and Katara moved together beneath the display, mirroring each other in perfect time, waltzing across the snow and leaving bright sparks and shimmering droplets in their wake. 

I thought I knew my destiny, Zuko murmured, but I was wrong. He twirled her under his arm and spun her out, her fingers slipping from his like liquid starlight.

“It seems easy now, doesn’t it?” came Roku’s voice as he appeared beside Zuko. They watched Katara dance—or was it Unne? The two of them seemed to flicker in and out of each other, dancing in perfect sync—two souls walking the same path, separated only by time. She was the last waterbender, and she was beautiful.

Why did you run? Zuko whispered, the words lifting from his lips like birds taking flight. When he turned, it was Katara standing beside him, her eyes fixed on the horizon with unrelenting determination.

“You know why,” she replied in a murmur, without taking her eyes off the barely discernible line between heaven and earth. “You’ll run too.”

Something cold slithered into the pit of his stomach. What do you mean? I won’t run.

When Katara shook her head, she flickered again, and Zuko found himself recoiling from the intensity of Unne’s eyes, even caught in flashes.

“It’s coming,” she said, her voice now a chorus of sound—of Katara, Unne, Roku, the howling wind itself, and something else Zuko couldn’t quite place. The stars were starting to fall from the sky and collect in her outstretched palms, spilling out between her fingers like liquid metal. “The fire’s end—”

The sun’s rays suddenly burst out over the horizon, only this time Zuko knew it wasn’t the sun at all. He looked up to see the fire monster shambling towards him; the voids where its eyes and mouth should be were downturned in an undeniable mask of grief, the strangely ineffable sound of its screams melding with the ever-present howl of the wind. Zuko tore his gaze away from the monster and back to where Katara was standing, but there was nothing but a pile of ashes. 

No! Zuko lunged at the monster, his hands outstretched to pull his inner spark into a flame—but instead he felt the oddest shift in his chest, a blind bright cold energy, and he pulled and suddenly a thousand shards of ice were descending on the monster all at once—

—Zuko snapped awake, hissing in pain as he pushed himself up. He’d fallen asleep slumped against his bedroom door, his face still sticky with dried tears. 

Agni. He groaned, rubbing his right side where his ribs were complaining. The sky outside his window was dark grey with storm, the wind howling in distant agony. Zuko breathed deep, searching for the odd tearing sensation in his chest as the melting ice crystals brushed against his lungs—a recent morning ritual, but already deeply ingrained. In the intervening months he’d grown used to every odd little quirk of his frozen heart—how it thudded coldly when he was having a nightmare, how his whole torso would stiffen from a too-wide stretch, and how it always sluggishly warmed back up each morning as Katara melted whatever had frozen solid overnight. Even if she woke before he did, there was always a slow start as his body readjusted; but right now Zuko’s pulse was strong, without a hint of the odd shift that had become as familiar as his own name—as if the crystals hadn’t grown back at all. 

“That’s not good,” he muttered to himself, discarding his tunic and grabbing a fresh one on his way out the door. 

He found her in the ballroom, throwing spears of ice at the wall, her face impassive and her eyes flashing wild. 

“Katara?” 

She paused, shoulders heaving with exertion, but didn’t turn around. “Good morning!” she chirped, punctuating the salutation with another ice spear hurled at the wall. 

Zuko swallowed. “...did you sleep?” 

Katara shrugged. “A little. Not much. I don’t really need to, when the moon’s this high. And I wasn’t very tired, anyway,” the lies tumbled out of her, clumsy and inelegant. Zuko took a tiny step backward, just in time to avoid an ice spike as it shattered no more than an inch from his ear. 

“Hey!” he yelped. “If you want to spar, why don’t you just say so?!”

Her only response was to spin on her back leg, sending four sharp spears into the wall where they exploded upon impact into heaps of finely powdered snow. Zuko winced; Katara’s hands were trembling with effort, her face flushed and her muscles tense. Her waterbending, normally so fluid and smooth, seemed like an entirely different power—one that was jerky and distorted and only barely contained. 

“Are you sure you’re alright? You’re not—mad at me?”

Katara scoffed. “Why would I be mad at you?” 

He raised his good eyebrow. “I mean...where do you want me to start?” 

“Don’t patronize me,” she snapped. “I’m a big girl, I can deal with things on my own.”

Zuko gave a pointed look at the pockmarked wall in front of them. “So this is, what? Practice?” 

“Why not?” she folded her arms. “You keep telling me to fight with my waterbending. Isn’t that what I’m doing? And what are you smiling about?” 

He scrubbed his hand over his mouth, biting the inside of his lip. “Nothing. It’s just—you remind me of myself, a little.” 

“Great,” came the grumbling response, and Zuko scowled. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Katara finally stopped, breathing slow and deep until he saw her shoulders relax. 

“I’m sorry,” she said evenly. “I shouldn’t take things out on you like that.” 

Zuko circled around until they were face to face, unable to stop himself from remembering the time he tried to help a trapped moose lion cub and nearly lost two fingers for his trouble. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he offered. 

Her shoulders tightened again, just for a second. “No,” she replied between gritted teeth. 

“...should I leave?” 

Katara was quiet for a few moments, looking everywhere but at him. “No,” she eventually muttered, “you can stay. I just...don’t know what to do right now.”

Zuko chanced a step forwards, barely moving but to shift his weight. “Let me guess,” he said softly. “You feel like there are a thousand emotions flying around inside of you, all trying to get out at once, but instead they’re just trapped. You don’t know whether to scream at the sky or just let the ground swallow you whole, and you want to do both, but you can only pick one.”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I don’t know what happened. I was completely fine, and then suddenly I was so angry …” she trailed off, pulling stalagmites up from the floor and melting them down again. “Anyway. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Zuko watched her fidget for a few moments, reaching out for her hand before thinking the better of it. “Let me show you something.” 

Katara’s eyes flashed dark. “If you attack me without warning again, this time I won’t miss.” 

He shook his head. “I’m going to teach you a firebending form,” he said, biting back a smile as her eyes widened. “Firebending comes from emotions; we channel them into our movements. So—here.” His hands curled into fists and he punched them forward, alternating left and right with rhythmic, decisive jabs that left a scatter of sparks in their wake. 

“What’s this?” she asked, even as she bent her knees to imitate him. 

“If you’re going to throw ice spikes around, you may as well have decent form. Keep your other hand locked to your waist—good,” he instructed. “Breathe, while you’re moving: one punch on the inhale, the other on the exhale.” 

They moved in tandem for a few breaths; Zuko clenched his fists tightly, his arms tingling as he tried to smother the sparks erupting from his palms. Memories of the previous night didn’t come flooding back, per se; they were lying just beneath the surface of his mind, echoing in his ears, rippling like gooseflesh across his skin. 

A new way to firebend . 

Zuko cleared his throat. “Firebending is all bout transforming emotion into energy,” he said, wincing as his voice cracked like a teenager. “Whatever drives you, whatever haunts you, whatever keeps you up at night and drives you from your bed the next morning—imagine all of that flowing out through your hands.” He could almost hear his uncle’s voice echoing as the words left his lips; this had been one of Iroh’s favourite training exercises in the first few years of their exile. He licked dry lips that stung in the frigid air. “What’s driving you, Katara?” 

She stopped, dropping her arms abruptly to scowl at him. “Weren’t you just saying that you didn’t want to firebend like this anymore? What happened to not being driven by anger?” 

“ I’m not angry anymore, no,” Zuko folded his arms across his chest, “but this isn’t about me. You said you wanted to train, so I’m training you—unless you’re no longer interested.” 

They glared at each other for a few moments before Katara huffed and returned to her stance, punching with more vigour than before. 

“Throw more from your shoulder,” Zuko ordered, allowing himself a tiny smile as she adjusted. “Now: what’s driving you?” 

“I said—I don’t—want to—talk about it—” she replied, punctuating the words with her movements. The floor by her feet had liquified, and twin puddles swayed to and fro in perfect sync with her hands. 

“Sweep forward with both your arms,” he called, demonstrating with cold and empty hands. Katara followed his form, but flicked her wrists at the very last minute, sending the water spraying upwards to hit her directly in the face. She staggered back, sputtering, and Zuko had to hide his laughter behind his hand. Katara pulled the water away from her skin and hair, flicking it away as tiny ice shards, her whole body trembling with fury. 

“If you did that on purpose,” she hissed, “I swear—”

“—No! Of course not,” Zuko replied, his hands raised in surrender as he tried to keep his voice calm. “Your form just wasn’t right—”

“—and whose fault is that?!” Katara cried. “Can you even do it? Can you do anything right?”

Zuko opened his mouth to retort, but instead he took a deep breath and summoned a memory of the cool soft glow of the Southern Lights. A new way to firebend. 

Snap.  

The flame was strong and supple, standing upright with barely a flicker, its heat warming the skin of his wrist. Zuko flexed his palm, growing the flame into a fireball, and didn’t try to conceal his smirk as he took the stance, gave two sets of quick punches, and swept forward —

The fire lifted from his hands, racing away in a diagonal slash of light that hit the wall with a poof of steam, leaving a line of sharp black divots in its wake. 

Zuko couldn’t help the joyful laugh that escaped him, even as it seemed to make Katara even angrier. “Something like that,” he said, rapidly rubbing his thumb and forefinger together in anticipation. 

Katara remained still for a few moments, her expression unreadable; then, without warning, she leapt into the forward sweep with a guttural cry. There was a feeling like all the air had been sucked out of the room; a ball of water materialized out of nowhere, flying so fast that Zuko barely had time to register its existence before there was a huge boom and the wall exploded into rubble, exposing them to the screaming grey-white of the storm outside. Zuko hissed through his teeth, wrapping his arms around himself. His heart seemed to pulse in time with the whirling snow, the ice crystals stabbing painfully into his flesh—or was Katara losing her grip on his heart?

The fire's end. Three words crawling out of the cold to smother him; Zuko snapped his fingers, but his hands were shaking too hard. There was a hollow thud as Katara pulled the walls back into place.

"Something like that?" came her voice through the darkness, her tone oddly low and calm.

Zuko swallowed as dread slithered down the back of his throat, and busied himself with relighting the lamps.

"Yeah,” he called back in a croak, “just, maybe with a little more restraint—"

"—I want to try it again," she cut him off, her eyes glinting stubbornly, and Zuko bit back a flash of desire. She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful.

They began to circle each other in silence; she let a few icicles fly for practice, and he let fire stream out in a thin line, flicking his hand forward to send it out like a whip. 

Katara set her jaw. “Is that your version of a warning?” 

“Channel your emotions,” he called back, falling into a ready stance with a smirk. “I’d prefer that you avoid causing any more structural damage. I live here too, you know.” 

Her eyes narrowed and she shoved her hands forward, sending a quick-moving stream of water at Zuko. 

“Good!” he barked, knocking it aside with a fire-covered fist. “Do that again.” 

The water was quicker this time, forcing him to leap out of the way; he hit the ground, rolled to a crouch, and shot two jets of flame from his hands, which Katara extinguished. She retaliated with a turn, sending half a dozen ice spikes at him; but Zuko thought of the sun rising at the edge of the horizon and drew his arms in a half-circle, summoning a bright shield of fire that consumed the ice before it could hit him. As the flames died down, Zuko heard her growl in frustration. 

That’s my girl, he thought, even though he knew he probably shouldn’t. 

While they had moved in tandem the night before, the sparring made for a far livelier dance; the mist swirled around their feet as they traded blows step for step, each new challenge both a surprise and a perfect fit for the building pace. Katara threw a sheet of ice that came so close that it nearly sliced the tip of Zuko’s nose clean off; as he ducked underneath it, he could see his own exhilarated expression mirrored back at him—and the steady glow of fire in his hands. He grinned. 

“What’s driving you, Katara?” he yelled over the sound of the ice shattering behind him. 

They were circling each other again; Katara’s cheeks were flush, her eyes bright and clear.

“Hama,” she said through gritted teeth. 

“What about her?” Zuko kept his voice calm, even as he sent a plume of flame her way. 

“She stole me,” Katara spat. “She imprisoned me. She tried to make me just like her. She’s the reason I’m in this mess. She was twisted and cruel and I still wanted to love her.” She punched forward with each proclamation, sending ice flying in every direction; Zuko swallowed a yelp as one shard brushed past his good ear. 

“Okay,” he panted, “what else?”

“I’m angry at the Fire Nation,” Katara charged, following Zuko’s lead as he spun through one of his favourite kicking forms. “They began this war when they didn’t need to. Their selfishness and greed have destroyed my people and altered our course forever. We will never be the same because of what they did.” Her eyes flicked to him, daring him to disagree.

Zuko sighed. “I can’t blame you. What else?” 

"You really want to know what else? I'm angry at everything, Zuko!" Katara cried. “I’m angry that Unne was so cruel to Hama. I’m angry at Roku for being such a coward. I’m angry because you’re the first person I’ve ever trusted, and you couldn’t even do me the decency of being literally anyone else from any other family on Earth!” she grabbed at his fist, and Zuko gasped as his flame was abruptly extinguished and frost raced up his arm. 

“Katara, wait, slow down—”

“—I’m angry that other people get to treat destiny like something that will fulfill them. I’m angry that I’m all alone down here forever and have to keep myself hidden for the rest of my life!” She was moving faster now, her hands a blur, too quick to parry or evade. “I’m angry that no matter what I do, I can’t stop waking up into the same nightmare; it doesn’t matter how strong I am, how smart I am, how good I am— none of it !” Katara shoved her hands forward, directly at Zuko’s chest; there was a suspended moment of terrible silence—just long enough to watch the horror dawn on her face as she realized what she’d done—before the cold slammed into him.

Zuko went sliding back across the floor, gasping for air around lungs that were already stiffening into ice. The cold was bitter and fast, spreading in every direction without mercy, making him shiver so hard that his entire body was locked rigid. 

“Zuko!” Katara flew to his side, her face ashen; she pulled spirit water from the pouch at her side, coating her hands in it and pressing desperately at his chest with trembling fingers. “I—it was an accident, I didn’t mean to—” 

He tried to reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear, but couldn’t raise his arm more than an inch or so. At least I’ll die looking at her, Zuko thought, curiously calm even as his vision began to blur and fade. 

“No, no, no, stay with me,” he heard Katara snap. “Come on, Zuko, just—breathe, okay? Keep breathing.” 

Zuko opened his mouth, but couldn’t pull air into his lungs. As the cold forced his eyes shut, he searched for the dying spark inside of him, and imagined curling up next to it—a lonely fire dwindling before the long and inevitable night. As the last of the light faded, something colder than ice gripped him for just a moment: the fire’s end.

“Zuko, please ,” Katara half-sobbed, “I...I can’t melt this on my own.” 

He thought of a candle, sitting pristine and plump, begging to be lit.

I can’t do it, he would always say; but that was never an excuse, so they’d always begin again: draw from your inner fire, through your root. Keep yourself grounded. Don’t forget to breathe.  

He tried exhaling, and felt the grip on his chest loosen ever so slightly. 

Let the flames catch what they must. Be patient. Channel your emotions. 

He imagined exhaling every nightmare, every doubtful thought, every agonizing fear that kept him stiff and faltering. He imagined the ice in his chest like diamonds held and cradled; he thought of the smooth bright arc of a falling star, of fire that flowed like water and shone like moonlight. A new way. 

Zuko thought exhale, inhale, the words lengthening in his mind with every repetition; clarity crept back to the edges of his perception as air flowed into his lungs, breath by breath, until finally his shivering began to subside. Katara’s hand clenched into his chest and there was a sharp shift as all the rest of the ice disappeared, leaving him weak and aching but undeniably alive. 

“Ow,” he heard himself say.

“Zuko!” Katara cupped his face in both her hands, her tears splashing hot onto his cheeks. “I—I thought you were—”

And then her lips were pressed against his: quickly, chastely, and as powerful as lightning. 

Katara sat back abruptly, her cheeks burning. “I’m sorry,” she gasped out behind her hands. 

Zuko struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “I feel like this is something of a mixed signal,” he rasped, his tone brusque even though inside he was privately laughing—a combination of shock and terror and joy , unfamiliar and shining, just strong enough to distract him from the pain that was starting to creep through every inch of his body. 

She turned even redder, her mouth pressed into a thin line as she looped her arm around his waist and helped him to his feet. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get you warmed up.” 

It was almost impossible to walk. Every step resulted in an explosion of pain that sent him reeling, and Zuko couldn’t stop shivering; his limbs jerked uncontrollably as if possessed by demonic puppeteers, and every few steps they were forced to halt as his whole body was wracked with shudders. His eyesight slid in and out of focus as they shuffled through the storm-shadowed hallways, his mind sluggish and fuzzy. 

“Wait,” he managed to wheeze as they turned a corner into the grand foyer, “you’ve gone the wrong way.” 

She hummed tunelessly. “Your room’s on the other side of the fortress and you can barely walk.”

“And stairs will be easier?” Zuko’s voice was barely a whisper; it hurt to breathe too deeply, and he kept expecting to feel the sharp stab of the ice crystals with every movement. His head felt tense, as if he was wearing a too-tight helmet, and he had to wriggle his jaw to keep it from locking up. 

Katara set her mouth in a line. “Hold onto me as tight as you can, please,” she said briskly, waving her free hand; Zuko barely had time to obey before his stomach plummeted to his toes and his knees buckled, as the ground beneath them rose smoothly into the air and extended itself to form a bridge to the second floor. The dizzying sensations made his head spin, and the subsequent vertigo rippled up and down his body in waves and blacked out his vision. 

“You’re not allowed to die on me,” Katara hissed under her breath as she all but carried him across. 

The fire's end.

“I’ll try not to,” Zuko tried to say, but it came out as nothing but a weak wheeze as the waves of pain and dizziness began to pull him under. The world became a confusing blur of bluish shadows and hazy grey light, punctuated by brief flashes of Katara: her worried face as she helped him into the four-poster bed, her hand steady on the back of his neck as she raised a cup of tea to his lips, the faint scent of her hair coming and going like the tide as she fetched more quilts to pile on top of him. Her eyes shone blue like calm water, her skin smooth and her voice siren-sweet—a beacon faintly calling him to shore. 

She is warmth, he thought; and then the storm surged, and everything went black.

Chapter Text

In his dreams, Zuko was adrift in the eye of the storm, surrounded by a sea of stars that was thick and silent and disconcertingly calm. Katara was nowhere to be seen and yet everywhere all at once; he could feel the reassuring warmth of her breath at the crook of his neck, her fingers tightly intertwined with his and her voice ringing faintly in his mind.

Zuko...

“I’m here,” he said, turning around to find himself still alone. “Where are you?”

I don’t know if you can hear me , she breathed, her lips grazing against the curve of his ear. I don’t even know if you’ll wake up tomorrow.

“You say that like this is the first time you’ve almost killed me,” he replied with a faint smirk, feeling his way through the dark as he tried to chase the phantom sensations back to their tether.

But Katara gave no sign that she’d heard him. I thought Unne’s letter had broken my heart, she murmured, her voice disembodied even as it reverberated against the planes of his chest. I thought you were going to help me avoid my destiny, and reading that letter...it was like a cruel joke, to think you’re running from something only to find yourself back in front of it.

“I know,” Zuko whispered, his cheeks burning as the sky began to darken around him. “I understand. I promise I do.”

I wanted to pretend it never happened, that you weren’t important. But then I saw you bending, and then we bent together— Katara choked up, and Zuko swore he felt a bloom of tears swelling at the collar of his tunic before she continued. I was angry because I felt trapped. I felt...hopeless. I couldn’t bear to acknowledge the truth, which was that Unne’s letter didn’t do anything to my heart; it was you. I was fighting so hard to avoid going through the same heartbreak, and then…well. When she laughed, it rang hollow, echoing like distant and ominous claps of thunder.

“Katara…” Zuko fought in vain to push the name out of his throat and into the waking world. Her fingers ghosted across his cheek, her thumb tracing the edge of his Cupid’s Bow, and in his mind’s eye he saw her smile.

I understand now, she whispered, barely audible over the sound of his heart. I understand why Unne went through all that risk, and endured all that pain, just for love. Because seeing you like this… She shuddered, and the whole world seemed to tremble along with her. It’s made me realize that I couldn't bear to even imagine a life without you in it.

There was a burst of warmth at the edge of the horizon, a sun that wasn’t a sun. Zuko turned towards it, pulling at nothing, trying to find his way out of the dark as the fire monster’s agonized roar erupted in his ears. The fire’s end.

Please wake up, Zuko, Katara cried in a whisper. Don’t break my heart before I can even give it to you.

Zuko’s breath hitched in his throat, and there was a crack of lightning as the sky broke out into a blaze of shrieking flames—

—and he awoke with a soft gasp, blinking into the moonlit gloom.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

Katara was curled against his side, her head nestled into the crook of his neck and her hand resting squarely on top of his heart. Zuko turned his head, his lips grazing against the skin of her brow, and the dried tears on her face shone silver in the moonlight as she stirred.

“Katara,” he whispered, taking her chin and tilting her face up to meet him. She leaned closer, resting her forehead against his as her hands crept up around his neck.

“Zuko…” she mumbled sleepily, before their eyes finally met and she jolted. “Zuko! You—you’re alive!”

“I'm starting to think that the only way into your bed is to survive a near-death experience,” he grinned. “You’re lucky I’m hard to kill.”

She laughed, even as tears shone in her eyes. “You’re such a pest. Isn’t it enough to have one broken heart between us? Do you have to—”

“—I love you, Katara,” Zuko breathed, the words pulled from him without thought or intention. The voices from his dream were echoing in his mind, delirious fictions inseparable from fever-warped realities; and for a moment he was afraid that he’d made it all up. His pulse quickened, the ice crystals spreading with every heartbeat, unable to do anything but wait.

But Katara’s eyes were shining, her thumb tracing reverently across the line of his scar as she leaned in to kiss him. “I love you too,” she whispered, her lips moving soft against his skin.

Bring me the heart of the last waterbender.

And as Zuko surged forward to kiss her back, he felt warmth spread through his chest like the sun’s everlasting fire: first blooming, then growing, then brightening, then roaring .

The weeks that followed were bright and shining, every day a new and tender adventure. Zuko woke each morning from dreamless slumber, his heart beating warm and steady and Katara in his arms. They spent countless hours in the library, drinking wine and reading aloud from the scrolls in dramatic voices; they sparred in the ballroom until the ice walls were pockmarked with smoke and snow; they made love in the domed tower with the Southern Lights shining high above. They would bend together, filling the entire fortress with plumes of colour and making every room and hall seem like something mystical and new. Sleep was a gift again, and Zuko found that he was positively ravenous for it; he was lulled by the sight of the stars that remained behind when he closed his eyes, and woke each time to the same clear sky. Time passed like a waking dream, both slow and fast and tantalizingly inconsequential.

And through it all, Katara was there by his side; while they already spent almost every minute together, it felt entirely different when he could just pull her into his arms anytime he felt like it. While the isolation of the fortress had once felt like a choke point, it now seemed like a protective shield, sheltering them away and giving them nothing but time to fall further and further into each others’ orbit, until it seemed like the previous years of their lives were nothing but Pai Sho moves guiding them to precisely the right spot on the board.

Being in love, Zuko decided, was a wondrous thing; his past encounters had always been tinged with anxiety of one sort or another, making it difficult to ever truly let his guard down. But there was no one else in the fortress; no one to see, no one to judge, no one to report his actions for future blackmail or manipulation. There was no one to throw a line of doubt onto which he could latch; hidden from every open eye, with time all but impossible to gauge, it was easy to slide into joy and leave fear behind.

 “How do you do that—that thing with your fingers?” Katara asked him one night, as they lay curled in each others’ arms in front of the roaring fire.

“Snapping them?” Zuko demonstrated, pulling a flame into his palm and then whisking it away like a magician’s slight of hand. “You press your thumb and middle fingers together, and then just...snap them. It’s hard to explain.”

Katara brought her hand into position, wearing the same expression she did when he taught her how to dance. But she didn’t have the movements exactly right; she was pressing too hard, and her finger couldn’t quite find the right place. After a few aborted attempts, she gave up with a dramatic pout.

“Keep practicing,” Zuko said with a sly chuckle.

Katara smirked. “You say that about everything.”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? That’s the only way I ever became any good at firebending.”

She rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “Which time?” she murmured playfully.

“Mm. Both.” He pulled her up into a kiss, languid and intimate—but Katara pulled away, her brow furrowing as she tried to snap her fingers again and produced only a weak splat sound.

“It’s always seems so easy when you do it!” she frowned, her voice edged with an immature whine that made Zuko crack up.

“Agni, you’re impatient sometimes.”

She fixed him with a look of mock surprise. “Have you only just noticed that?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been distracted.”

“Oh? With what?”

“You definitely know the answer to that question,” Zuko murmured, capturing her lips in another kiss and flipping them both over, their limbs tangling even more hopelessly into the quilts. The fire brightened in the hearth, and he followed the warmth of it down the line of her jaw and neck. Katara giggled.

“That’s a nice trick,” she said, her voice hitching as Zuko nipped at her pulse point.

“Oh, it’s more than a trick,” he replied, and right on cue the fire roared up, so bright that it felt like the sun on his face at the very height of summer. Katara turned her face to the warmth and sighed contentedly.

“I have to admit,” she murmured drowsily, “I love the moon and the snow, but sometimes it's sure nice to be warm,” she stretched her arms overhead, her back arching and her hair spilling down around her neck and shoulders. She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful.

“I bet you’re radiant in the sunshine,” Zuko sighed.

She hummed, eyes still closed. “Do you miss it? The sun, I mean.”

He tucked his head into the crook of her neck and closed his eyes, feeling the heat of the fire on his nose and cheeks. “There’s part of me that feels like I won’t be fully healed until I see the sun again,” he murmured into her skin. 

“Why do you think that is?” Katara asked, her hands gently carding through his hair.

“Firebenders draw their power from the sun. I've never gone this long without seeing sunlight before."

Katara’s nails gently raked across his upper back, sending shivers up his spine. “You know, there’s a Southern Water Tribe legend that moonlight is actually borrowed sunlight,” she murmured.

“Oh really?” Zuko opened his eyes. “How would that work?”

“Once upon a time,” Katara began, turning on her side so they lay face to face, “the moon had no light, and pulled on the tides invisibly from the sky. The night was always cold and dark; animals struggled and fought to survive to see the next day, and plants curled up and turned black. The moon couldn’t see any of this, of course; she just blindly followed her regular paths, back and forth across the sky each night.

“Then, early one morning, the moon spotted a new object at the edge of the horizon, its bright beams showering the world in warmth and light: the sun. The moon fell instantly in love, but was sure that the sun had no idea she existed; nonetheless she began to linger at the edge of the horizon each morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of him; she could feel the tides pulling at her to remain on course, but she couldn’t help it. Unbeknownst to the moon, the sun had fallen in love with her at first sight, and was also developing a habit of lingering at the start and end of each day to see her shadow against the stars. The moon eventually gathered the courage to sail across the daytime sky; blinded by the brightness all around her, she fell into the sun’s arms, creating the first solar eclipse.”

“Someday remind me to tell you about the time I got kidnapped by pirates during a solar eclipse,” Zuko murmured, raising her hand to brush against his lips. “Continue.”

Katara’s gaze shifted over his shoulder, to where the moon hung full outside the window. “The moon and sun were happy together; with his light to guide her, the moon was able to see the earth for the very first time, and she was in awe at its beauty: the blue of the oceans, the white of the snow, the way every human was unique and strange. But the earth was descending into chaos; it wasn’t quite day and it wasn’t quite night, so no one knew whether to hunt or sleep. The tides were going haywire without the moon’s constant motion across the sky to guide them. So on the next winter solstice, the sun gave the moon half of his light, then sent her back into the darkness. The moon was heartbroken, but she used the light to look down on all the growing things that the sun nourished, and know that they were forever bonded even if they never shared the sky again."

Zuko frowned. “I don’t know if I like that story. “It’s too sad.”

“What makes you say that?”

He turned over to see the moon, trying to find a fragment of sunshine in its cold light. “The sun gave her half of himself, and he never saw her again. It just...doesn’t seem right."

Katara rested her chin on his shoulder. "Isn't that what love is? Giving someone half of yourself?"

"Maybe," Zuko answered, turning back to face her, "but what about being sent away and heartbroken? How am I supposed to give you half of my fire?"

"Oh, spirits, Zuko, it's a story . Why must you ruin everything?" Katara giggled as Zuko scooped her back into his arms.

"It's in my nature," Zuko murmured, dipping his head to kiss her as the fire began to grow in the hearth once again. "Fire shines, until it devours."

“—and that’s how my uncle and I saved a village with a giant unagi and some firecrackers,” Zuko finished with a flourish.

Katara burst out laughing, almost spraying wine across the table. “That’s ridiculous ,” she giggled, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m aching, Zuko, I didn’t know laughing could hurt?”

Zuko chuckled. “We had some strange adventures! There was this other time when we had to convince a whole town that the nearby volcano was about to explode. They all thought they were safe because some kooky woman had been calling herself a fortuneteller, and…” he furrowed his brow; the laughter had faded from Katara’s eyes, and she was looking at him with an utterly unreadable expression. Zuko put down his wine. “…is everything okay? That story was a little less funny than I promised, I know, I just thought—” he stopped as Katara rose to her feet.

“Come with me,” she said, holding out her hand. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Zuko followed her, his heart in his throat as they wound their way through the fortress in silence. The mist clinging to the walls and floor seemed particularly thick tonight, nearly soupy against his legs; Katara seemed to float above it all, her feet barely making an imprint, seeming more like a spirit haunting the fortress than a woman who lived inside it.

They turned another corner, and Zuko felt a surge of dread as they began to descend a familiar staircase.

“This is where you ran,” he whispered to himself.

Get out. Now.

If Katara heard him, she didn’t reply; she walked steadily, her back and shoulders ramrod-straight, tension all but simmering under her calm exterior; it seemed as if the slightest bit of pressure could shatter her into pieces. They landed in the cellar, plunging into pitch black darkness; Zuko snapped his fingers and held up the flame, illuminating baskets of preserved items and some bottles of wine lingering in the corners.

“Where are we going?” he finally blurted as Katara approached a bare section of the wall.

She stopped, her palm hovering over the ice, and he watched her shoulders rise and fall in a long and careful sigh. Then she gestured, and a section of the wall pulled away to reveal a tunnel.

“...Katara?”

She bit back a terrified smile. “Don’t—just...let’s go before I change my mind.”

The tunnel was cramped, tall enough to stand in but barely wide enough to turn around. The floor sloped downwards in a spiralling curve, and they walked for what seemed like an impossible amount of time, deeper and deeper, before finally emerging into a wide chamber made entirely of blueish-green ice. It was empty save for a wide raised dais in its centre, illuminated in eerie waves by a skylight overhead. Zuko peered upwards, marvelling at how far underground they were.

“That’s the pond, up there,” Katara said briskly. “Or, at least part of it.”

“Incredible,” Zuko breathed, squinting at the tiny pinpoint moon just barely visible beyond the shifting water. “Where are we?”

He felt her let go of his hand, and looked back down to see her approach the dais, stepping wide around a bare patch of ice as if avoiding a trap. He followed her lead, coming to the far side of the platform, where two fuzzy points of light were pulsing in time with each other like a heartbeat.

Katara’s face was ashen as she held out her hand, and the layers of ice melted away in smooth sheets of water; there was a flash of light, brighter than Zuko had ever seen, and when the black spots finally faded from his vision he saw what had been frozen inside: a bright blob of what looked like liquid fire, orbiting in perfect sync with an identically sized piece of glittering grey dust.

“What…”

—burn bright, burn ever, burn all—

Zuko rubbed one ear, frowning as the whisper skittered across his mind and retreated just as abruptly. He looked at the liquid fire again—

—burn bright, burn always, burn free—

He didn’t realize he’d stepped back until he almost fell off the raised step. “What is this?” he gasped.

Katara’s eyes never left the pulsing lights. “Do you know the legend of the avatar? The original bender?”

Zuko nodded, then cleared his throat when he realized she wasn’t looking at him. “Yeah,” he replied, his voice echoing eerily through the room. “It was said that the avatar was the only one who could master multiple elements, that he or she was the bridge between the spirit world and this one. But...those legends are thousands of years old. There’s never been any proof that such a person existed.”

She gave a bitter half-smile. “The avatar, whether they existed or not, was ultimately meant to be a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

“Hundreds of years ago, the Fire Nation and the Southern Water Tribe were more than allies,” Katara whispered, her voice barely audible. “They recognized that they were two halves of the same whole, incomplete without the other. They married each other, traded with each other, built each other up so that their combined efforts were greater than the sum of their parts.”

Zuko had to fight to pay attention to her voice, drawn to the bright ball of liquid fire so strongly that he curled his toes into his boots to ensure his feet stayed put.

“Firebenders and waterbenders weren’t always so isolated in their abilities,” Katara was saying. “At some point, after the legend of the avatar had faded from memory but long before our nations arose, people still remembered that all bending was simply a variation on the same fundamental energy. Chi is the same, no matter the element; everything hovers in balance, a push and pull as sure as the tide. Water brings calm and flexibility to the most heated of situations, and fire brings light to the coldest nights.”

—burn bright, shine out, be free, be FREE—

Zuko reeled as the whisper surged again. “I can hear—something,” he gasped.

Katara swallowed, turning him gently away from the dais and cupping his face in her hands. “Don’t look,” she whispered. “Close your eyes until you can’t hear it anymore, and don’t open them until you’re sure it’s gone.”

He obeyed, squeezing his eyes shut, and let himself lean into her, waiting and breathing until all he could hear was his own pulse echoing in his ears. One of her hands found his and they both squeezed for dear life.

“It's a piece of the moon and a piece of the sun, orbiting in perfect harmony," Katara whispered. "A symbol of the eternal connection between water and fire, of how our individual strengths are dwarfed by our combined abilities. They’re a pair of ancient tools, once used by the most powerful bending masters, in rituals whose specifics have long been forgotten.”

Zuko opened his eyes. “Katara—”

“—This is how Unne took Hama’s bending away,” she cut him off, her eyes sliding to the conspicuously empty patch of floor. “And how she tried to take mine.”

Something cold and heavy slid into the pit of Zuko’s stomach. “Is—is this where it happened?”

“Yes,” she answered flatly. “Unne and Hama were both driven to madness by the whispers—that’s the very language of the elements themselves. Chi in its purest forms.”

Every muscle in Zuko’s neck ached to turn and look again, to bathe in the tiny droplet of the sunlight he’d all but forgotten, but he set his jaw and turned even further away.

“How do they work?” he gritted out, the words mumbled as he fought for control.

Katara swallowed. “I don’t know,” she replied. "Neither did Hama, or Unne. The scrolls in the library give hints, but nothing specific. We lost most of our oral tradition when the Fire Nation attacked."

Zuko felt a shudder of guilt somewhere deep down in his chest, but it barely registered underneath the feral craving of warmth and light. The war may as well have been an old nurse's tale.

"It's okay," Katara was saying, and he realized he must have whispered I'm sorry.

Burn bright, burn ever, shine out, SHINE—

"Let's get out of here," Zuko rasped, the words tumbling out of his mouth like pebbles.

Katara nodded. "We can do that."

The trip back up to the fortress came and went in mere flashes: the blur of blue-green ice surrounding them on all sides, the treachery of snow under their feet, the hollow sounds of doors creaking back into place. Zuko kept his mouth in a thin tight line, turning his head away from the pond as they passed by; the horrible beautiful non-sound of the sun piece echoed over and over in his mind until it faded into the background of all the other things he would never be able to fully forget, and by the time his head cleared they were back in Katara's—their—room, sitting on her bed.

Katara smiled just a little, with one corner of her mouth, and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind Zuko's ear.

"Thank you," she whispered, her other hand clasping his own. "I never thought I'd walk out of that place again, never mind with a firebender by my side. But you keep on surprising me."

"Let's get out of here," Zuko said again, and watched her brow furrow in confusion.

"Zuko, we—we already left."

He shook his head. "No, I mean—out of the fortress. Away from this place. Let's just go." He touched two fingers to her lips before they could part to protest. "I know everything you've said, Katara. But what if we left anyway? What if you just pulled the entire fortress down and buried the secret under the ice? What if no one ever had to find it again? What if you could be free?"

"Could we?" Katara's voice was barely a whisper.

Despite everything, Zuko felt a smile crawl across his lips. "Katara, I need you to understand how important it is that I'm about to say these words: fuck destiny . It's never done anything but cause misery to either of us. Maybe it's time to just walk away."

Watching the realization dawn on her face was better than any sunrise he'd ever seen, and possibly ever would see.

"Fuck destiny," she repeated, rolling the words around in her mouth like a new language.

"We can change our names and go anywhere we want. The world is a big place, and there's lots of small villages where people don't ask questions as long as you make good tea." Zuko clasped both her hands in his. "We can do this, Katara. We can go tonight. We can go right now, and never look back."

He expected her to falter. He expected her face to fall as the weight of the world she'd bourne for so long caught up and pulled her down again. He expected the heart of the last waterbender to break again, as it had broken before. But this time, Katara nodded.

"Never look back," she repeated, her eyes shining with a new bright thing he might call hope.

"Never."

"Okay," she slid off the bed and hopped to her feet. "Okay. Let's start packing. Let's go, right now."

She was the waterbender, and she was beautiful, and it was the honour of Zuko's life to be able to pull her into the circle of his arms and kiss her again and again and again.

Eventually they managed to disentangle, pulling their clothes back on in the haphazard manner of new lovers unconcerned with decorum, and Katara barely smoothed down her hair before she began circling the room, muttering to herself as she pulled clothes from drawers and books from shelves.

"You should pack too," she said, and Zuko had never been more eager to obey.

The walk back to his old chambers was familiar but no longer friendly, and Zuko found himself absently whistling an old Fire Nation sailing tune as he wandered through the halls. The door to his bedroom opened without a creak, everything just where he'd left it—

Zuko's whistle died in his throat as he saw something sitting on the neatly made bed: a scroll, tightly coiled on itself, sealed with the blood-red wax of the Royal Fire Nation Army.

No.

His mouth went bone-dry as he approached in silence, his hands trembling as he picked up the scroll. The seal crumbled under his fingers, the parchment snapping in the cool air as he opened it to read words written in a cruelly familiar hand:

Prince Zuko,

I can't say it's a pleasure to hear from you, but the situation at home has changed. Your sister, Crown Princess Azula, First Of Her Name and Heir to the Throne, has agreed to my hand in marriage, and in her infinite mercy has pleaded your case before the Emperor. Despite reservations, Fire Lord Ozai has agreed to rescind the order of your exile; I am therefore pleased to inform you that I have gathered my regiment and we will arrive at the shores of the South Pole within the week. I trust this scroll has found your exact location, as we shall be using it as a marker to navigate our way to your rescue.

Long live the Fire Nation, and its future Empress.

I remain,

Admiral Zhao of the Fire Nation, Emperor Consort.

"Fuck," was all Zuko could say.