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He closes his eyes, tilts his head back a little, and relishes the feeling of his mother's soft fingers combing through his hair.
"Your hair is a beautiful thing," she tells him. "Not everyone is so fortunate to have such beautiful hair."
He smiles. "I've got it from Father! His hair is so long and shiny and glossy..." He runs out of adjectives to describe his father's hair, but he thinks his mother gets the gist.
Behind him, he hears the smile in her voice. "Yes. Yes, you did. Take good care of it," she adds as she starts gathering his hair into a phoenix plume. He starts to turn, to try to look his mother in the eyes, but stills when he hears a tsk sound coming from behind him, chiding him, telling him to hold still. So he keeps his eyes trained on the elaborate tapestry in front of him instead.
"But I've got you for that," he argues.
"Yes," comes the reply. "But I won't always be there to comb and tie it for you. Besides," she adds before he can open his mouth to ask what in Agni's name that is supposed to mean, "you're a big boy, aren't you, Zuko? Big boys tie their own hair." He can practically hear the smirk in her voice.
He blushes. "Yes. Sorry."
She chuckles. "It's no problem. I like doing your hair."
Zuko also likes it. It's become a ritual between him and his mother: in the evenings, she comes to his chambers to comb and tie his hair for the night and tell him good night.
(He wonders if she does the same for Azula.)
(But Azula has Father. And Zuko has Mother.)
And so he doesn't question it.
They say that you only miss things when they're suddenly not there anymore. Zuko is very well aware of that when he wakes up one morning to find his mother gone and his father silent and stoic and his sister gleeful.
That night, he does his hair alone, finally letting the tears flow free after a whole day of desperately holding them back. It doesn't feel the same, and when he wakes up the next morning from the few hours of sleep he got, his hair is ruffled and unruly. Somehow, he thinks, that represents the state he is in perfectly.
He is confused. He doesn't know what to do.
He wants his mother back.
(He wants his father to acknowledge him. He wants his sister to smile at him and mean it for once.)
(He wants to fill the gaping void left behind in his mother's absence.)
Doing his hair becomes a task, a chore. When he doesn't do it himself (and see, Mother, I am a big boy, I can do it myself, because you're not here anymore. Is this what you meant that evening? Did you know?), he lets the servants do it for him, and he tries his best to let it just be another menial task. It is just something simple. An everyday activity, like eating and sleeping and exercising. It is not worth a second thought, especially not for the Crown Prince.
(But he knows that's not true. Knows he is lying to himself. Knows it with every day that a pang of guilt and regret and longing stabs him in the heart when a comb is run through his long hair, when strands of it fall in his face. He knows, and he can't forget.)
(Azula's hair remains the same after Mother is gone. He doesn't know what to think of that.)
Then, one day, Azula burns his hair while playing hide-and-explode. It's not much, only a few ends are singed, but it still hurts. She teases him for his sad expression, but Zuko doesn't care. His mother's voice echoes in his head.
Take good care of it.
He had tried to. He really had. And when he looks at Azula, she is already skipping away, not paying him another (wasted) thought, her own hair neat and immaculate in her perfect top knot.
Three years later, as he kneels atop a ceremonial platform and begs for mercy, strands of his long, dark hair fall in his face. He thinks of his mother, wonders what she would think should she see him now. He doesn't know if he should be glad that she is not here, or if he should cry out for her help, for her protection.
(He is confused. He only had the nation's best interest at heart. What did he do wrong?)
And when Zuko looks up, the only thing he knows is a father's gentle touch turned into pain and heat.
---
Her mother does her hair every day. She runs her fingers through the long strands, braids them behind her head, leaves two strands free to fasten in place with blue beads, framing her face. It's a ritual. It's almost like a ceremony, and Katara thinks she will never get tired of this.
She lives in a bubble. Her own personal, happy bubble.
Everyone in the tribe wears hair loopies. There are variations in style, because they are not one and the same, they are different people, each with their own passions and interests and hobbies, but the loops framing the face remain the same for everyone.
It's a way to belong. And Katara belongs, and thinks she couldn't be happier.
Her mother often tells her stories. Of faraway worlds and Avatars and better times. Of princesses and princes and cities built of ice. She listens intently and commits each and every story to heart, determined to remember them all, determined to forget none of them.
(She doesn't quite succeed in that, as she will later find.)
Her mother also tells her to always take care of her hair. To always keep it tied up, so the ends don't become damaged, and so that she can work freely without having to worry about her own hair blinding her.
Wearing her hair in a braid is a thing of practicality and style at the same time. When she gathers snow and tans hides and guts fish, she always keeps her hair away from her face, so that she can work better. So that she can contribute more to the tribe. So that she can do her share, and more.
Then, one day, she sees black snow descend like an omen of death. When she runs to her igloo, there is a man in there with fire in his eyes and at his hands. When she runs to find her father, she ducks to avoid a fireball coming straight for her. The back of her head feels uncomfortably warm, warmer than it ever should be, and she smells smoke and something singed, but she ignores it and forces herself to run, to save her mother.
When Katara comes back to the igloo with her father, her hair having come loose and falling in her face, she finds it empty except for one charred corpse.
She is glad for the strands falling in her eyes to shield her from the horrors before her.
Later that day, when the Fire Nation is gone and only ash and death are left behind in its wake, she gathers her hair in her hands and rids it of the singed strains. It's not too much, but she thinks her mother would be sad if she'd be here to see it.
She has always told her how beautiful her hair is.
Life after that is not the same. Nothing is. And this one particular thing shouldn't even be a concern, now that her father is spending too much time on the ice staring at the ocean with a grim expression, and her brother is, for the first time in his life, not annoying her with his bad jokes, but it somehow is. And Katara doesn't know if she should be ashamed of it or not.
But: she doesn't know how to do her hair.
She is a functional member of the tribe and she doesn't even know how to do her own hair.
If she doesn't even know that, then where does that leave her?
It's such a trivial thing, such a non-problem to worry over, and yet here she sits, crying over not knowing how to braid her hair the way her mother had always done for her.
She feels so stupid. So childish.
Gran-Gran steps in to help. She shows her how to do the braid, how to separate the two strands, how to put in the beads. She even offers to do her hair for her every morning, just like her mother always used to do.
But Katara declines.
No. She doesn't have a mother anymore. Gran-Gran means well, but is no substitute.
No one could ever replace Kya.
And so she learns how to braid her own hair and steps up as the woman of the household. She does all the things her mother used to do, adds it to her own list of chores, and does not utter a word of complaint.
Her tribe has lost a valuable member and her family its center. No one and nothing could ever replace that, but that doesn't change the fact that there are still chores to do, still parkas waiting to be sewn and hearths to be stroked.
Katara thinks of the meaning of hair. Thinks of how her mother used to tell her that it's a physical extension of thought, a symbol for purity and spirituality.
Her thoughts are a mess. She keeps repeating the same sequence of events over and over in her head: when she'd entered the igloo, begging her mother to make it all go away, when she'd run away (like a coward), when she'd stumbled to find her hair flowing free, when she'd come back to the igloo to find her mother's dead body.
So many things could have been different. Had she not run, what would have happened? Would she have taken her mother's place? What would have happened had she not stumbled because of that fireball? Would her father have reached the igloo sooner then?
She doesn't know. And she will never know, but that doesn't stop her thoughts from haunting her in her sleep, from torturing her when she's awake.
And so Katara gathers her hair (her thoughts) and braids it back, keeps it in place, keeps it (them) contained.
She does not allow it to flow freely.
She doesn't know if she ever will.
---
When he wakes up, he comes to find that almost all of his hair has been shorn off to allow the medic better access to the injured side of his face.
(He also comes to find that he is on a ship full of strangers and his uncle and that his father has renounced him of everything he ever knew.)
He could grow it back. He could.
But he doesn't.
Instead, he keeps it shorn except for the mockery of the phoenix plume at the back of his head. He knows people whisper. Stare at him. But he doesn't care.
It's as much for medicinal purposes (better access, less itching) as to display shame. He has lost his honor. He has disgraced his family, his nation, himself, by being weak and not standing up to fight.
He has to do better. He has to be better.
But in the dark of his cabin, he confesses to himself that he could not bear to wear his hair just like before. To look in the mirror and see that unfamiliar face wear that same familiar hairstyle. It would look wrong. Not right.
Everything is wrong.
(What would Mother think?)
(Would she think the scar hideous? A mark of shame?)
In the morning, he gets up as soon as the sun crests the horizon and graces the earth with its light, and forces the thoughts out of his mind. There is no time to think about the past. He is living in the After now, and he has to deal with it.
He will not shame himself further by sitting around, pitying himself. He has a task to accomplish, for him and for his nation.
(And for his Uncle, so he can go home again, because Zuko still doesn't know why Iroh is actually here with him on this shoddy ship and not back in the Fire Nation living a life of luxury.)
(He doesn't know if he will ever understand.)
Most days, he pores over maps and yells at his crew and his uncle, and stomps around the deck to assert authority, and trains until he almost falls over from exhaustion. Soldiers shake their heads at him, title him boy-prince behind his back when they think he can't hear them. His uncle reminds him not to overexert himself, to be mindful of his physical limits, and to eat and sleep regularly.
Zuko ignores them, for there is one particular reason he keeps his rigorous schedule: nightmares.
He gets them almost every night he doesn't practically fall into bed. There are countless nights where he woke the whole ship up (metal carries sound well, he found out) with his screaming and thrashing, and he's seen the glares they send him after such nights.
They confuse him. What do they want? When he keeps to a 'normal' schedule, they get annoyed by being woken up by him. When he keeps to his schedule, they laugh and belittle him.
It's like he can't do anything right.
(And perhaps he can't. Not until he's captured the Avatar. Not until he shows his father that he is worthy of taking up a place on this earth. Not until he's shown the whole world that he will not stay down just because it kicks him.)
And he knows what they want. They want to go home, just like him. They want to see their families again and not be stuck on this stupid ship, practically banished in all but name. Just like him.
But Zuko can't go home and there is a reason they ended up on his ship, so it's not like it's his fault.
They don't understand. No one does. He is a prince (was a prince), and they are just lowly soldiers (still higher in rank than him, technically). And Uncle is... Uncle is Uncle.
No one gets it. And so he ignores the whispers and glares and mutiny attempts and the belittlement he gets from other admirals and generals, and the hate he gets from Earth Kingdom peasants.
He'll show them. He'll show the whole world and he will not give up until he's done that.
(He also ignores that whenever he binds his hair in the morning, it's an echo of a past long gone. Of a better life. Of a different him.)
And then Zhao blows his ship up and he only barely manages to escape and drags himself, bruised and beaten, all the way to the North Pole where the Avatar slips out of his grasp like always. Uncle and he end up stranded on a raft for three weeks living on nothing but fish and boiled water and steadily ignoring all the corpses floating in the water beside them, and just when he thinks he can't take it anymore, that the world has finally managed to kick him until he has no strength left to drag himself upright again, he spots land. And it's pathetic but it's the best thing he's ever seen.
They manage to get a room at an inn where he eats and bathes and finally gets to wash his unruly hair with oils and soap and water that is free of salt for once. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face gaunt with hunger, and the left side of his face more red than usual due to the stinging salt of the ocean. But his hair is finally clean again and just for a moment, he allows himself to run his fingers through the strands. The ends are split and uneven and they lack their usual glow due to the stress of the last few months, but just for a second, he imagines it's his mother's fingers in his hair.
Maybe it's pathetic but he just spent three weeks on a raft in constant company of Uncle and no privacy. He allows himself just that one moment to be pathetic without any judgment.
And then, naturally, everything goes to hell. Because of course.
Azula announces him and Uncle traitors (and it's not like he's spent the better part of three years trying to do his nation a favor just to be cast out in an instant for something he didn't even know Uncle did) and they end up running, far away from Azula and her ship full of chains.
Uncle says they are refugees now and have to blend in with the Earth Kingdom peasants in order to survive.
And Zuko hates, hates, hates to do it, but it's the only way.
So he takes his knife, and cuts the last of his remaining hair off.
He doesn't know how it is in other cultures, but that's not important, because in the Fire Nation, hair has significant meaning. Long hair especially. It signifies status and wealth and honor. The longer and shinier, the better off one is.
By cutting it off, the only thing distinguishing him from peasants will be the burn mark across his face. And not even that will be unique.
(He doesn't know how to feel about that.)
Hair is a gift from one's parents. By cutting it off, one renounces their ties to their family.
Well. Isn't that fitting.
And he wants to scream to the heavens that he is a loyal son of the Fire Nation, of the Fire Lord, that he only wanted to do what he thought was right. But yelling won't get him anywhere, and it's not like his father will hear him in this Agni-forsaken Earth Kingdom forest.
(His father declared him a traitor and sent his sister to capture him. And this is all wrong, everything is wrong, why can't nobody but him see that-)
(Father is forcing him to cut his hair off. Father is forcing him to renounce his ties to him.)
(Father has cut ties with him since the Agni Kai. And his mother - he doesn't know where his mother is. He hopes she can forgive him, wherever she is.)
And so Zuko becomes a traitor to his nation, a deserter, not only in name but appearance, too.
It feels strange, not having hair. Not having to comb and tie it up in the morning. He is reminded of his first weeks on the ship, of the strangeness of it all. In a way, his current situation is nothing and all like it.
Instead of ocean salt, it's desert sand tickling his head. Instead of Fire Nation soldiers glaring at him, it's Earth Kingdom peasants giving him either disgusted or pitying looks. Instead of the mission being to capture the Avatar, his mission now is to survive and not be recognized anywhere.
Oh, and to avoid his sister and towns with his face plastered on wanted posters. Because that's his life now, apparently.
But Uncle is the same. Uncle is always the same.
And somehow, he gets used to it. This is his third life now, the second time he's been forced to start from scratch, and, just like he did three years ago, he adapts. He dons green at day and blue at night and keeps his head over the water, keeps breathing one more day, one more week.
His hair grows longer, and the wind stops tickling his barely covered scalp, and the dry air of the Earth Kingdom stops stinging in his eyes and lungs. Uncle and he arrive in Ba Sing Se for a new life, a life as tea servers (there is a simple honor in poverty, nephew) and when he looks in the mirror, something he does daily now, the glare of his scar is lessened by the black hair framing it, hiding it, giving him a little bit of security and anonymity.
Short hair is not something worn in Fire Nation nobility. But he is not Zuko anymore, he is Lee. And so he thinks he likes it.
That, of course, doesn't last. Azula enters the city in a swish of green and white and red and destroys all hope he had for his third life, only to offer him his first one on a silver platter.
He takes it.
And so Zuko enters the Fire Nation after three long years of torture and hardships, his sister at his side and his uncle in chains.
For the first time in years, he wears a top knot again. His hair is too short for a proper one, and the servants barely manage to tie his hair up in one. When he sees himself in the mirror with his ceremonial armor and golden flame, he doesn't see himself.
He doesn't know what he expected to see, but it's not that.
It's everything but that.
Still, he forces himself to smile and to not scowl all the time (his default expression over the years in exile, and a surprisingly difficult habit to break) and to suppress the urge to tremble whenever his father or sister lay eyes on him.
Zuko desperately tries to fit in. To be the son his father always wanted, the Crown Prince his nation deserves.
Mai expects him to be the same after all these years, and he wishes he could say he is, but he is not. He is a vastly different man than the boy who left the nation three years ago in disgrace, and when he looks around, he can physically see the difference.
All those nobles wear their ceremonial armor and elaborate robes and headpieces like it's their weapon, while Zuko wears his like it's his prison. He is too gaunt, too underfed from all the months spent as a starving refugee, from the constant stress and anxiety not allowing him to stomach anything in great quantity. His hair is too short, a mark of shame, a mark of renounced family ties and titles and days sitting at his father's right hand. His face, of course, displays the greatest shame of all, and there is nothing he can do to hide it.
His father chose a place for all the world to see.
He feels like a little boy playing dress-up, like a child playing soldier. The armor doesn't fit and his almost-topknot looks hideous and everything is just so wrong.
And, like always, he is the only one who can see it.
He visits his uncle in prison and, after many tries, he gets a shiny new crown alongside information that, once again, questions his whole worldview. That night, he stares at the crown sitting on his desk and dares not to touch it. He could put it in his hair. He could try to see how it looks. But something tells him no, wait.
And so he hides it and doesn't look at it again. It would feel wrong.
It's only many moons later that he enters his room and frees his hair off the rigorous top knot giving him a headache (one last time). He sets the crown aside (one last time), runs his fingers through his freely flowing hair, and thinks of After.
It feels like victory.
(He thinks his mother would be proud.)
---
It feels like a betrayal.
She has never let her hair flow freely since the night her mother died, but doing so is a necessity in this strange land of volcanos and monsters. They have to fit in, and everyone has to do their part, no matter how much it hurts.
And Katara is intimately familiar with doing her part, so she lets her hair run down her back in long dark curls and binds the upper part in a top knot. Seeing Sokka with one is strange, and she wants to scream at the heavens that this isn't fair, that this culture is just like all the others, that there is nothing special about fire. That these people should just get over their superiority complex already so that the rest of the world can live in peace.
But this is war, and nothing in war is fair. Screaming won't get her anywhere, so she sucks it up and does her part, and wears the colors and hairstyles of her oppressor.
She comes to find that not everyone in the Fire Nation is bad. The people living in villages are just as bad off as the rest of the world, and certainly have it worse than some of the Earth Kingdom nobility turning up their nose at the war like it's not their problem. Like a century-long war is beneath their notice.
And so Katara dons a veil and shades of purple and brown, paints her skin red, and heals people she should naturally want to see dead. She disguises herself as a river sprite, a spirit of the Fire Nation, and gets that same spirit's blessing later that night. She defends villagers who would shun and chase her away, and expects no help in return. She gets caught and judged, and proudly declares that she will never turn her back on people who need her.
She remembers her mother saying the same once. She imagines she would be proud.
(She hopes she would be. After all, these are her enemies. But maybe the monsters aren't the everyday people. Maybe monsters are more complicated than that.)
(She hopes her mother understands. But she has to do this.)
She learns bloodbending under a full moon, and is forced to see the evil her own people can become. And Katara sees now that the nations aren't so different from each other. They are all just people, and everyone can be corrupted.
The day of the invasion arrives, and she finally wears blue again. It feels good, wearing the familiar garb, seeing the contrast of her skin against the proud blue of her tribe. Feeling her mother's necklace around her neck again. She wears her tunic like armor, her hands her weapons and her necklace her shield.
She hesitates when it comes to her hair.
It would feel wrong to wear it in a braid again. She has seen so much, learned so many new things, done and accomplished so much more than she could have ever dreamed about.
She is not a little girl anymore. She is still Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, but she is different now.
And so she lets her hair cascade down her back, to be worn as part of her armor. She lets her thoughts flow free, lets her anger out.
The hair loopies stay, though. She can't quite let go of that.
(And she is not letting go of anything. She is displaying her strength for all to see, for the whole nation to fear. She knows her mother would be proud.)
(She is not holding back anymore. She is not afraid. She is proud, and she is ready.)
The invasion fails. Her father and his forces get captured and Katara and the rest of her little group flee to the Western Air Temple. She sits in her room at night and stares up through the window at the moon, at Yue, and wonders what they did wrong, thinks of Before, and gets stuck in her own mind.
She absentmindedly runs her fingers through the long strands of her brown hair and thinks that maybe, had she sported her traditional braid, things would be different.
She quickly banishes that thought. She knows it's not true.
One day later, a traitor prince joins them, and wins all of their group over, one by one. All except her. Katara wants to shake them, to yell at them, to ask why in Tui and La's name she is the only one seeing how wrong this all is. Why she is the only one with a clear head.
But maybe she's always been the only one to clearly see things.
And so she makes snarky remarks and sends glares and ignores the self-proclaimed exile, because she has to make sure that they all make it out of this alive, that they don't fail. Not again. It's a role she is familiar with, a role she has filled out since that night, and it doesn't matter if it hurts her, because it's for the best of the tribe. And her tribe is right here, at the Western Air Temple, and when Suki and her father come back from the Boiling Rock, she thinks that hole in her heart, that void left in her mother's wake, is finally starting to heal, just a bit.
The peace doesn't last though. Naturally.
Azula pays them a visit and they get separated from her father (again) and everyone is sitting in a circle congratulating Zuko on what an oh-so-great person he is, and Katara can't take it anymore. And so she spits fire like she were a firebender and sends glares that could incinerate even the strongest man.
But Zuko takes it, and then asks how to make it better, and then, against all expectations, actually does make it better. She almost kills a man, but stops herself at the last second, because it's not what her mother would have wanted and it's certainly not what Katara wants, so she settles for letting her tears flow freely on the flight back to the others.
Life after that becomes easier. It's certainly not easy because they still have a war and a comet to worry over, but it's not as doom-filled and depressing as it was before. And she finally, finally, allows herself to see Zuko for the man he really is: someone kind, and someone gentle, and someone honorable.
He asks her to fight Azula with him, and she agrees with a smirk, because she knows she is powerful, knows she is talented, and under his admiring and trusting gaze, she has never felt more worshipped.
The comet arrives. Azula laughs at them in a mixture of fury and insanity and then almost kills her own brother.
(You will marry a powerful bender.
Powerful bender indeed.)
She shoots lightning at Katara, but then Zuko is there, jumping in front of it with a dramatic shout, and for a moment, the whole world stands still, and all she can see is lightning.
It's blue, she thinks.
And then Zuko crashes to the ground and she screams because no, that can't be it, it can't end like this, not after everything they've been through, and she reaches out to him, subconsciously summons water to her hand, and starts to run.
And then there is fire.
And all she can see is blue.
Her hair falls in front of her face, blinds her, makes her vulnerable, and for a second, it is not stone under her feet but snow, and the sky overhead is not crimson but black.
And for a moment, she is a little girl again, scared and helpless and about to lose her mother.
She is not that girl anymore, and she will not lose someone important to her again.
And so Katara gets up, whips her hair out of her face, and fights.
After, when Azula is in chains and screaming and crying and thrashing, she runs to Zuko, ignores the hair falling in her face again, and does her best to heal him. She prays to Agni, prays to Tui and La, prays to whatever spirits are out there that she is not too late, that she is strong enough, that he is strong enough to hold on just a moment longer.
And he does, just like she knew he would because he is Zuko, and he is stubborn and proud and strong, and when he opens his eyes to blink at her, when his lips tilt upward ever so slightly, it's the best thing she's ever seen.
Katara kisses him.
---
Later, when the war is a far echo from the past, Zuko stands on his balcony and looks out at the caldera before him. It's the city of his childhood, the city of his nightmares, and the city of his future. Agni's rays crest over the horizon and greet him with all their glory. He closes his eyes and relishes the warmth of them on his face.
A light breeze plays with his hair then, whips them in front of his eyes, tickles his nose and cheeks. He wears it long again. It had taken him years to reach the point where he'd feel comfortable with it again. He feels like he has changed too much to wear it like his childhood self again, and he also doesn't want to look like his father with the traditional long hair and upper part in a top knot.
Katara assures him he doesn't.
He knows the scar makes him different, now not a sign of shame but of humility, of strength and love, but he still grapples with fears and nightmares and anxiety.
He's the Fire Lord. He can do what he wants. And while that gives him reason to absolutely not do whatever the hell he wants, he takes that liberty on one tradition: hair. He wears it short and in his barely-topknot and doesn't care what the rest of the court says, because it's him, and he is proud of that.
He is no son of Ozai. He is the grandson of Avatar Roku.
Some days, he still feels like he is playing dress-up. Like the ornamental robes and the five-pronged crown don't fit him right, like he is only an imposter. And an imposter is not what this war-torn nation needs.
But then he sees Katara and the way she smiles at him and is assured that yes, this is where he is supposed to be. This is right. And for once, he is not the only one to see that.
His nation heals and the world slowly but surely gets used to peace again, and his relationship with one particular waterbender blooms. She is the best thing that has ever happened to him, and for her, he thinks, all the pain he'd been forced to endure is worth it.
No, not only for her. For the world, and for himself. But she is a certain aspect of that.
Eventually, he finds his mother again. She'd been hiding in the town of her childhood on a small island south of the mainland under a false name, and when she agrees to come back to the palace again, it is not alone, but with a husband and a daughter.
For a moment, Zuko feels like he's been replaced. He watches their little family with mixed feelings he hates himself for, Kiyi and Ikem and Ursa, and then Ursa sees him and smiles and beckons him over and he realizes that he's never had reason to worry. He hasn't been replaced. He's never been forgotten.
His mother studies his scar with tortured eyes and cries and he allows her to run her fingers over it, assures her that it's not her fault, that he's better off with it. That it's something he is proud of, these days.
And it's true. When he looks in the mirror, he doesn't see his father. He sees a man torn by war and conflict, born into violence and fire, who brought peace to a nation that had forgotten what that word meant.
(He smiles.)
Ursa then runs her fingers through his hair, through the short strands, and tells him that it's a shame. He's always had such beautiful hair, but she assures him that he looks good with or without it.
He lets his hair grow long after that.
He is older now, a man who ended a war and fought at the Avatar's side, but he still closes his eyes when his mother runs her fingers through the silky strands and whispers lullabies.
His sister gets better, slowly, and with many regressions, but she is getting better, and that is what is important. She and Ursa don't have the easiest relationship, especially not with Kiyi in the picture, but one day, Zuko catches them in a sunlit parlor, Ursa carefully tying Azula's hair back and Azula smiling lightly with closed eyes.
Her hair looks better after that, and he comes to find that Ursa has incorporated the same ritual with Azula that she used to run through every evening with Zuko.
And now, as he is standing on a balcony and feeling the wind whip through his long hair, with his wife and child sleeping behind him on the bed, he thinks of Now.
---
Katara is a woman of many things: strength, power, talent, compassion, warmth. And, just like her element, she is adaptable.
After the war, she goes back to the South Pole. She hasn't seen her home in months, not since she found the Avatar, and she is eager to help rebuild, to see her home grow and thrive and heal.
She is many things now: a talented bender, a master, a healer. She uses her gifts for many things, for building and healing the sick, for guiding water through canals, for reinforcing ice walls. For building snowmen for the little ones.
But eventually, she grows restless. She has toured the world under threat of death. Stability is nice, and for a few months, the South Pole and her family were just what she needed, but she has simply seen too much to stay in one place now. She needs to move, she needs adventure, and she needs it now.
So she goes on a world tour again. Just this time with no death threats.
The evening before she departs for the Earth Kingdom, Katara stands in the snowy tundra and stares up at the moon. Yue glows brightly and just for a moment, Katara swears she can see the late princess smile.
She closes her eyes, feels the wind whip through her hair. She can feel her mother kiss her goodbye, tell her until later, my sweet.
Her hair is braided back, with two strands framing her face. She is not repressing her emotions this time, like she's done for years. She is simply enjoying the practicality of a braid.
She departs for the Earth Kingdom, and does many things: she heals and builds and sees. It's not so different from the South Pole, except that it is, and that the people and the surroundings are not the same, and it is enough. She visits Suki on Kyoshi Island and travels with Toph and Aang and then sets out on her own for a while, content with only herself as company.
But eventually, that, too, becomes tiresome. And so she sets out for the Fire Nation.
Zuko awaits her and she kisses him in greeting. The servants around them whisper, but his flushed cheeks and the happy glow in his eyes make it all worth it.
She notices that his hair is the same length he'd kept it in during the war, and asks him why. After all, it is traditional for Fire Nation nobility and royalty to wear their hair long. He tells her that he doesn't want to look like his father.
She assures him that he doesn't, but accepts his decision. She knows how important hair can be.
As for her own, she dons blues and reds and braids and top knots and variations of the two. These are not the colors of her enemies now, but of her friends. Of her lover. Of her husband.
She has learned to let her thoughts flow as freely as the locks down her back. Katara is many things, and one of them is adaptable.
Her mother would be proud. And as she feels the child move within her, kick with all the strength of a tiny water - or firebender, she swears that she will braid her child's hair every day and every night and tell him or her every story and lullaby she knows.
Life is good. Life is peaceful. She pays regular visits to the South Pole, wears many colors and hairstyles, stays in the Fire Nation, the country that was once her enemy but now is only beauty and grace, and regularly thinks of her mother. But this time, not to torture herself. The memories still sting, and they always will, but that's okay. She is at peace, and so is her mother.
And every time she sees Zuko wincing whenever the topic of sea prunes comes up, or rolling his eyes when Aang teases him about the whole grandfather thing, she thinks she falls more and more in love with him.
And now, as she is lying in bed and feeling the remnants of a breeze lightly play with her hair, with little Izumi sleeping peacefully beside her and watching her husband stand on the balcony, she thinks of Now.