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Dreams had done a number of troubles to Katara. At first it was easy to shrug it off once she woke up and remember only a scruple of a whole. It was nothing but another one of her foolhardy subconscious repeatedly playing tricks on her mind. Katara told herself it was the aftereffects of the century-long war and had nothing to do with her, nor to anyone and especially, nor to anything important. Needless to say, she could deal with it. An empty dream hadn't had at least half of the horror and torment she had endured under the hellfire caused by the Fire Nation.
But ignorance was bliss, of course. Dreams do matter; whether a lighthearted or a somber one, both brought the foreshadows of tomorrow.
It was the breeze of the midsummer nights that had led her to show concern and left her to ponder that particular dream. Castle in the air — was how her mother had once described the muddle images and though fictitious those might be, it was a scape worth delving into.
“A dream is a wish your heart makes, Katara,” her mother used to tell her.
It was the art of naïvety that she had mastered long before she became a Master Waterbender. Oblivious of her own self, she had considered her innocence as a curse. Trust was one she could give away so easily. Doubt was never questioned and things were accepted as they appear. But countered with the differences of war and peace, she had figured where to position herself — along the bluish-grays and the biting mist was where the sense of belongingness had engulfed her.
In the innocence of snow and water.
In the poignance of glaciers and ice.
But the dreams were demands for desire, a far cry but a close call to belong. This she was incredulous to claims of yearning as she had already plummeted headfirst towards a stream of satisfaction. She was contented and had reveled with it at present. Katara was never empty but a missing piece of a puzzle was yet to be filled in her.
Under the silver streaks of the moon, Katara wandered the Fire Palace. Weeks had already passed since Zuko was crowned as the new Firelord. The redeemed nation flourished with non-stop celebrations. Aang and Zuko was well adored by many and credited for their war efforts. The rest of them held the same honor. The days that followed flowed in ease and remained in an unaltered balance. It was a sight to behold and was too good to be true, but all the same she relished in it.
She stopped by the courtyard.
Flashes of battling tongues of fire and the loud roars of thunder sent Katara into an inner turmoil. That day had been their final judgement and Katara would never forget how the rush of adrenaline had crashed like tidal waves inside her.
Sense as sharp as the razors of lightning, Zuko flung himself forward and took the strike. Zuko fell in an ear deafening thud. He twitched, convulsing. He grunted in pain. He heaved for air, ragged breaths in staccato. Tremors mantled his limbs, his whole body. Nerves stunned, aching as distress encapsulated him.
Fingers latched to her mother’s necklace. Her eyes closed, reliving that night.
Azula was securely chained to the ground; angry and resisting. A frazzled Katara ran to his side immediately under no resistance. She cradled him gingerly and turned him over. A star-shaped burn painted his chest. It was a mark of violence that glared back at her. Life was sucked out from Zuko. He laid like a carcass — pale and dull. A stark contrast to the dusky skies.
She searched high and midnight blue loomed over her.
Rattled with her panic, water-coated hands placed leisurely onto the fresh injury. She felt, more than see, the new layers of skin knitting into place beneath her fingertips. She concentrated and prayed to the Spirits, afraid that any moment he would slip away.
“Katara,” a voice lured her away.
Katara turned and was surprised to see the subject of her thoughts. “Zuko,” she offered back as acknowledgement.
“I thought I saw a shadow,” he said. Zuko shifted awkwardly from one foot to another and gestured a hand at her. “It turns out it was only you.”
She lifted a brow questioningly. “Is the Firelord scared of shadows now?”
Zuko scowled. “No. I'm not,” he denied in a cemented tone. “I was only out for a walk when— wait, aren't you supposed to be in bed, sleeping?”
Katara rolled her eyes. “Can't sleep. That much is obvious,” she shrugged and grinned. “Seems we're on the same page. Tough luck, Firelord.”
She toyed with a simper plastered on her face, approaching him. Zuko hunched his back and crossed his arms with a huff.
Unaware of the uneven bricks and the upturned blocks in the courtyard, she tripped into a crack. Katara let out a startled yelp and dove in face first for the cobbles. Expecting a stinging smack, Katara shielded herself with her arms raised, ready for a rough landing.
But instead, she landed on a smooth, warm mass of silk and flesh. An arm curled around her waist to steady her and a hand grasped her forearm. Katara faltered for a moment. Slowly, she looked up from where her face was pressed into and met golden eyes peering down at her, a hairsbreadth away.
Zuko cleared his throat.
Katara blinked.
Then as if nothing happened, they pushed each other and regained their footing. Standing tall and with grace, they both shrieked in unison:
“Thanks!”
“Sorry!”
Déjà vu
The Western Air Temple rumbled. The building vibrated under the soles of their feet, the cracks audibly heard and sand dusted their eyes. Boulders fell, descending from the ceilings. Katara stood rooted to the ground as shock coursed through her core. Stupified, she hadn't heard Zuko yell at her. What happened next went in a haste as she had already found herself caged under his arms, sheltering her away from the hailstorm of rocks and stones.
Katara grimaced and averted her eyes away. Anywhere but him. Zuko, on the otherhand, felt heat climbing up from his neck, turning his cheeks red and jaw tight. Down to their nervous habit, she curled strands of hair around her finger, and the same were for him who fidgeted with the hem of his tunic.
“You're leaving tomorrow,” he started.
She turned and locked eyes with him. His scorching stare made her squirm a little. She responded, “Yes.”
A beat.
He nodded. “Then we should go back inside and head to bed.”
She shook her head, refusing him. “I'll hang around for a while.”
Squaring her shoulders, she forged her way past him. It was the truth. She would be leaving tomorrow. To head for the artic waters. In a few hours she would be parting ways from the summer heat of Caldera. In a few days she would be home to the blizzards of the Southern Water Tribe. And Katara was glad. She would be seeing Gran-Gran, whom she hadn't had any contact to in almost a year. With her, Sokka and Hakoda home, her family would finally be complete after long years of waiting. She was pleased and gratified yet she couldn’t help but feel on edge.
Her mind was reeling. Everything was going too fast but she was in no way to be complaining otherwise. This was what she had been looking forward to from day one, and now that she had it in an arm's length, things just didn't make sense. She felt as if she had been missing something and was somehow been overlooked. All just didn't fall into place, at least not how the way she had imagined it to be.
Matters of consequence must be faced in due time. A trail of responsibilities would be greeting her along the way. Yesterday’s actions had resulted to problems that were ten times as large than usual. Restoring the effects of destruction was a lot more hard than causing it. The war had reached its end yet they still had duties to attend. This was an endless cycle of creation and destruction — to conclude what had started as evil and to produce what humanity had failed to deliver.
This was a jumpstart they needed to participate altogether. As one and undivided.
“Would you mind if I walk with you tonight?”
Katara halted.
“I waited out here all night.”
Like the tides, she was pulled through a near-forgotten memory. One that she was guiltily ashamed of up until this day. Vivid pictures of her loathe and displeasure on him circled back behind her eyes.
She whirled to face him. "I wouldn’t,” she paused, “though shouldn’t I be the one to ask you that? Since you own the place and you're the—”
“Firelord,” Zuko supplied and smiled. “Thought you'd say something like that.”
Katara mirrored a smile of her own.
The night was calm. It was almost quiet, apart from the occasional chatter of the crickets and the rustle of the windblown trees. They walked side by side, shoulders brushing every now and again. Neither spoke nor offered to open up a conversation. All were still and silent. Tonight was theirs to cherish. Katara and Zuko ventured the crisscross labyrinth that was the Fire Palace. The summer's zephyr ushered them towards the royal gardens, where turtleducks made home within the pristine waters under the cherry blossoms.
“Bad dream?” Zuko broke the silence.
However, it took Katara awhile to respond, surveying the waters for the missing turtleducks. She sat cross-legged on the bank. “Not exactly.”
Zuko remained a few feet behind her. He watched the boiling frustration grace her, dismayed by the absence of the royal turtleducks. They were nowhere in sight. Katara sighed and made ripples with the cold water, creating a short disturbance in the pond. Katara lifted a ribbon, extending from the source towards her fingers. A block of ice formed when she fused each thread and froze it. The clump floated in her palm and with a sudden flick of her wrist, she loosened it in a big splash.
A soft laugh escaped from him. “Like the rest of us, turtleducks rise with the sun.”
You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun.
The world tuned out with her. Katara was lost in her own memory lane. Dreams and reality confused as one and the same. Her insides twisted in dread and trepidation. Katara stared back at her reflection by the water.
“—they're scared of the dark, you see. Usually they linger behind the bushes…” Zuko was cutoff short when he noticed the building tension. Carefully as not to frighten her, he advanced onto where she was perched by the pond and placed himself beside her. “Are you alright?”
“I don't know,” she whispered.
He tested the waters. “What's bothering you?”
Katara diverted her eyes to him. He met her halfway.
“You.”
Katara didn't miss the downcast look that crossed him. She hadn't meant to say it as such. He misunderstood her meaning.
“I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No!” she shouted. Katara quickly clamped her mouth shut at the sound of it. Wringing her hands, she clarified, “That's not what I meant. No, not at all. You don't bother me. I wasn't bothered by you. Never. I was just... I was…” she trailed off, defeated by her thoughts.
Annoyed, she laid back down the grass and wailed. "These dreams!” She raised her arms, skywards. Katara grumbled, “Damn, they're not exactly dreams! They're memories! Of you! You! Of all people—”
“Katara.”
“—it was you hunting us down. Also those pirates! Then in Ba Sing Se, it was you! It was you in the catacombs! The very place where you tricked me. I even had the sense to place my trust in you but in the end, you betrayed me. Thought that you had changed for the better. But no, I was wrong! Weeks after that, it was—”
“Hey, Katara.”
“—you! Again in that Air Temple and that… That combustion man who you hired to blow us up! It was you who rescued Dad. And Yon Rha! That little, cowering devil who murdered Mom! But you helped! Of course you did!” she sputtered. A sarcastic laugh broke out from Katara and she continued, “And Sozin's comet happened! Then Azula and that lightning you taunted out of your sister because you were stupid! So stupid! You could've died but you didn't. And I thank the Spirits for that because… But—”
She was a train wreck.
“Katara,” he called, one last time. His voice so soft that it caught all her attention.
“But you were fine. You're safe.” She closed her eyes, breathing in and out. She conceded, “Because of me.”
Zuko was all teeth and lip. He settled next to her. The cosmos stared down at them; the silver moon and the flaring stars all bright and beautiful. He began, “I have them too, you know. The dreams, I mean,” he paused. He shuffled to lean on his side to look at her. “Uncle used to say that the universe has a humored way of showing you what your person failed to recognize, of what we truly desire. That often we are unaware of what we want and we must dig a little deeper. And the dreams were the visions of these desires. Uncle Iroh named it, as the ever-wise man that he is, the eyeless desires. Funny thing, really.”
Katara opened her eyes and craned towards him. She was listening. So he continued, “We always thought that we have reached the end. The goal. Our mind has an eye of its own, and so does our hearts. And we frequently neglect this, even unknowingly. What matters usually to most people is what they know, not how they feel. We view the knowledgeable facts over the passionate fictions.
“But it wasn't fair. Like the world, our needs and wants must bear balance. What we think and feel should be in sync. We must broaden our mind and hear our hearts. Both belong to each other and together, in mutual understanding, it will show us the path towards our horizons. Finally reaching the end that although least expected, things just seem to fall into place. Justly right and never at any fault.”
A pair of sapphires glinted under the moonlight. Eyes glassed with unshed tears. “Zuko?”
“Hmm?”
“What do you dream?”
He swallowed, a lump forming in his throat. Zuko looked away.
She repeated the question when he didn't reply. “What do you dream?”
This time, the moon met the sun. “You.”
Time slowed down, all defying gravity. Zuko seemed to smolder her with his amber eyes. Katara gazed back, giving him the same intensity. Her blues resembling the glare of his flames. She fought to hold back but she caved in to her desires. Fighting against all odds, Katara tangled with the unforeseen.
In a crowd of a thousand stars, they were lightyears apart.
Star-crossed in this lifetime.
But she was the moon.
He was the sun.
Zuko and Katara met in an eclipse. Ice met fire as they collide, melding together in a tight embrace. Her gaping holes now filled with the ferocious heat of his inner fire. His blazing heat steaming down through her cascades and tides.
Her eyes flooded with tears. “I can’t.”
Zuko recoiled. “You can't what?”
She quivered in his arms, refusing to say anything.
Brave that he was, Zuko pushed his luck this time and said, “I like you.”
Katara pressed herself further to his chest, hiding her face. “No, you don't.”
“But I do.”
They let the silence hung between her muffled sobs and his constant sighs. Zuko lightly pulled and examined her. He brought a hesitating hand and cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb across the tearstained tracks under her lids. Her lashes fluttered close as sleep slowly welcomed Katara.
“I'm sorry,” she muttered, shaking her head.
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
She tightened her embrace, feeling more of his warmth. “I'm tired.”
“Alright, let’s get you back inside. You had a long day today.”
Dawn was fast approaching. Katara and Zuko left the royal gardens.
The young Firelord carried Katara to her quarters. The Waterbender laid in tranquility. Her worries faded along with sleep. She slept soundless and he didn't want to intrude on her privacy any longer. Zuko started to retreat. Then she called out his name,
“Zuko.”
He clasped her hand and squeezed it as an answer.
“I do, too,” she muttered.
Zuko combed her fringes away from her face, smoothing her dark curls. A small, satisfied smile graced her lips. He leaned in and printed a chaste kiss on her forehead. The Firelord exited and journeyed back to his own room. As soon as his head hit the comforts of his pillows, he was lulled into dreams of moon and sapphires. The same contented smile reflected back on him as he, too, slept.