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“The soul is pulled and wrapped in dreams.” 魂牵梦萦 (Hún qiān mèng yíng)
Southern Water Tribe ~ 6 months after the war
Katara had been home in the Southern Water Tribe for six months. Some mornings, she woke up before she remembered why her hands ached.
Before dawn, she slipped into the healing hut to tend old Nuniq’s leg, where frostbite had nearly claimed the bone. The wound healed slowly, but each day brought a little more hope. When she pressed her hand to it, the water answered her touch before she even tried to bend it. That ease was new. Six months ago, her hands would have trembled. Now, they remained steady. She wondered if she had finally outgrown her fear, or if her body had simply forgotten how to be afraid.
By nightfall, when only rest remained, the weight of the day settled over her. Her hands ached from healing, yet a restless energy lingered, as if she had been moving for so long she no longer remembered how to be still. Some nights, stillness was a comfort. Tonight, it felt like anticipation, as if she was waiting for something she could not name.
Some days, memories of traveling with Aang, Sokka, Toph, Suki, and Zuko felt like echoes from another life. Other days, those adventures seemed as close as yesterday. She tried not to dwell on them. Home needed her now more than the road ever did—or so she reminded herself each night.
Katara stretched out on her raised sleeping platform, gazing up at the driftwood roof blanketed in snow. She had built this space for herself when she first returned, a sanctuary just her own. It was so small that the wind outside seemed to whisper secrets meant only for her. She listened to its voice and the far-off cry of an animal, then let her eyes drift shut.
Sleep came quickly and completely, just as it always did now. There was no slow drifting off, only the sense of a door closing behind her.
☾ ☼ ☽
Dream:
Caldera ~ 2 weeks after the War
“You know, after being shot with lightning, most people would rest,” Katara said as she was prepping the tea, not even bothering to turn around, as she’d heard the unsteady pace of his footsteps the second he’d cleared the doorway.
“I’m fine.” Zuko’s voice had the forced evenness of someone concentrating very hard to sound not in pain.
“Uh-huh.” She poured the water anyway, feeling it settle into the cup the way she wanted it to, drawing the last of the ginger’s warmth out into the surface. “Then why does it sound like you’re using the wall to walk?”
“I’m not using the wall.” He protested weakly.
“Zuko.”
“I’m near the wall. There’s a difference.”
She turned just in time to see him press his hand flat against the stone, pretending it was just a casual gesture instead of what was keeping him standing. Seeing the Fire Lord, ruler of a whole nation, pale and trying to act casual about needing the wall, wore away the last of her patience.
“Sit down before you fall, and I have to explain to Iroh why the Fire Lord, his nephew, cracked his skull open a mere few days after getting struck by lightning.”
“I didn’t get struck. I redirected it. There’s a difference.”
Katara looked back at her work. “Struck redirected tell that to the scar on your chest. Also, your hand is shaking.”
He looked down at it like it belonged to someone else, like he was only now being introduced to the information. “Maybe I’m just cold.”
“You’re a firebender. Do you even get cold?”
Zuko grimaced as he sat down across from her. “You’re a waterbender. Do you get cold?”
Katara stared at him blankly. “That’s not the point, and you know it.” The exasperation in her voice was noticeable. He laughed anyway.
☾ ☼ ☽
Caldera ~ 6 Months After the War
Zuko had worn the Fire Lord’s crown for six months, yet some mornings he still woke bracing for someone to declare it all a mistake, that the throne belonged to someone older, someone whose hands did not still remember the searing path of his father’s lightning.
Each morning began with ledgers. The war had drained the treasury, as years of occupation always do. The Earth Kingdom colonies sent resources outward, war profiteers mourned their lost contracts, and foreign nations no longer trusted Fire Nation coin. For the first hour of every day, he wrestled with numbers that refused to balance, searching for a way for his nation to prosper without causing harm. Some mornings, he doubted such a path even existed.
By midmorning, he faced the tribunals, the list of names growing longer with each passing day. Generals, ministers, even entire families who had built their fortunes on war stood before him. Every verdict seemed to satisfy no one, least of all himself. Too lenient, and the colonies would never trust a ruler who freed their oppressors. Too harsh, and he risked becoming his father, who called cruelty justice. He began keeping a second, secret list beside the official one—not of sentences, but of the cases he still doubted he had judged well.
He didn’t tell anyone about the knife.
Three weeks ago, it had happened: a guard loyal to his father, unable to forgive the son for ending what his forefathers began. Zuko sensed the change in the air before he even saw the man’s hand move. He turned quickly, fire flaring, so the blade sliced only his robe’s sleeve. He needed no guards, no Uncle—just himself, and the training he never wanted but always needed.
He reported nothing beyond the guard’s arrest. There was no proof he had survived something that nearly happened. Yet some nights, lying in the dark, he remembered, not the fear, which faded, but the peculiar loneliness of saving himself once more, as always. Sometimes he wondered what it would feel like to have someone beside him in that hallway, instead of always standing alone.
He drifted into sleep still half-lost in the day’s numbers, the figures blurring into the gentle glow of the brazier. Somewhere between counting and dreaming, the world around him shifted entirely.
☾ ☼ ☽
Dream:
Ember Island
“So, what’s your favorite play? You always say the Ember Island Players ruin Love Amongst the Dragons every year, so you must have a favorite,” Katara said as she cleaned up after dinner, scrubbing the last bit of soot from a pot with more care than needed. Everyone else was already asleep in the vacation house. The fire was almost out, and only the two of them were left to finish the quiet chores.
Zuko frowned, surprised by the question. He crouched by the low table, trying to scrub a stain out of Sokka’s tunic with a focus that made it clear he’d rather be anywhere else. His sleeves were rolled up, and his scar caught the light whenever he moved his head. “I have a favorite . . .” he said, as if he was admitting something he wanted to keep secret.
She looked over briefly, delighted despite herself. “That was not a difficult question.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Everything about you is embarrassing. Try me.”
He exhaled through his nose, set the tunic down as if it had offended him, and wouldn’t quite look at her when he said it. “The Moon’s Masked Suitor.”
“The Moon’s Masked Suitor,” Katara repeated, testing the shape of it. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that one.”
“You wouldn’t have. It’s not…” He paused, then tried again, still avoiding her eyes. “It’s old. Older than the war, I think, or close to it. It used to be a small play with just two performers and a bare stage. The mask did most of the work. My mother took me before…” He didn’t finish, and he didn’t have to.
“And now?”
He almost smiled, though it looked a little awkward. “Now it’s an event. The last time I saw it, they added a whole second dance company just for the transition scenes at dusk and dawn, when the two spirits are allowed to meet. I guess one moon spirit sweeping her sleeves around wasn’t dramatic enough anymore. There’s a full orchestra now. Someone even decided the unmasking needed thunder. Lost all of the subtlety of the moment.”
“Thunder?” Katara raised an eyebrow.
Zuko nodded, groaning as he thought about it. “Actual drummers. Above the stage. I don’t know when it stopped being a quiet, sad little play about two spirits who can’t have each other and turned into...” He waved his hand in the air, searching for the right word. “...an event.” He set Sokka's tunic down, giving up entirely on pretending to clean it.
“You say that like it’s a complaint, but you have the exact face of someone who cried at the thunder.” Katara thought a bit. “I mean, the melodrama probably helps; I mean, it does feel like an event to them, probably.”
“I didn't cry at thunder. I was tired. It was late. The theatre was very warm.” Zuko thought about the rest of the words as he nodded, “I guess it could be melodramatic with less thunderous drums.”
She laughed at his comment on the drums, “You cried at the sad masked spirit play.”
“It’s a good play,” he said, holding onto his dignity even though he knew how it sounded. “The ending isn’t even happy. They only get to see each other at dusk and dawn, just for a few minutes each time, forever. That’s it. That’s all they get.” His voice lost its teasing tone and grew quiet as they kept working together, which surprised her after their lighthearted talk over dirty dishes. Katara realized she didn’t want to tease him out of it, at least not yet.
“That sounds like a tragedy,” she said delicately, “dressed up as a love story.”
“Maybe it’s both.” He eventually looked at her, scar and all, firelight low and warm gold upon half his face. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”
☾ ☼ ☽
Katara woke before the fire surrendered its last warmth, the dream already dissolving at the edges, though its ache lingered. She remembered his voice, the gentle gold of the firelight, and an ending that was neither happy nor truly sad—only the bittersweet ache of something lost.
Miles away in the Fire Nation, Zuko woke at the same instant, ledgers strewn where he had dozed off. He lay unmoving for a long while, letting the truth the dream had chosen for him settle in.
“I’m going to the Southern Water Tribe.”