Chapter Text
That all that this will ever be;
a moment turned to memory—eventually gone.
In hindsight, that was his mistake.
To think that Azula would duel him fair and square. To not have the foresight to leave Katara where they arrived, far, far away from the duelling ground.
He should’ve known better. He should’ve planned better, should’ve thought better, should’ve anticipated better, should’ve fought better—should’ve, should’ve—should’ve.
She should’ve survived.
She should be alive.
But her eyes are looking at him—void. Still. And his fingers tremble where they’re pressed against the side of her neck.
Nothing.
Not a flutter. Not a beat.
Absolutely nothing.
“Ka—Katara?” She blurs. Zuko blinks to keep focus, but she keeps blurring, she keeps—
Azula laughs from the other side of the courtyard, barely upright. “Oh, Zuzu, when will you learn?” She trills, far too pleased with herself despite having broken the sanctity of Agni Kai. “Your will is weak.”
It was supposed to be between them. Just them—why did he think she would honor that?
Zuko grits his teeth, his breathing sharp through the gaps. Seething. Breaking. Unleashing.
Azula killed her. She killed Katara—
—Katara is dead.
He chokes on something—something rising—maybe bile. Or fire. Or shards of his heart, he doesn’t know.
Katara is dead.
Dead.
But it feels as though death itself has reached inside of him and yanked his soul out. Torn it to pieces before his very eyes. And now he’s a husk of rage and pain, and—
“Katara…” He leans down, pressing their foreheads together. He’s always thought—what he wouldn’t have given to be able to do this. But now…
He’d much rather live not knowing what her skin feels like against his own.
“Katara, I love you—I’m sorry, I—” he hiccups. He’d swallow it all again if she’d just blink. He’d live with half a heart if hers would just beat again.
“I love you, Katara,” he whispers, eyes closed, reaching for the last traces of her warmth.
From where she stands, Azula claps her hand, off-beat and delirious. “How devastating,” she gasps, exaggeratedly. “Shall I send you off with her, brother? Maybe she’d finally look at you in the afterlife.”
Ocean eyes are still on him. The ghost of a frown still on her lips.
Azula’s words sink into him in increments.
There was a legend—of a resolve so tenacious that it bent even death, Uncle had once told him over tea and paisho. It is where we got the saying, “The willful wields the stars.”
A legend.
Stories passed down from generations of Fire Sages.
There is no guarantee that it may be true, but—
Shall I send you off with her?
Zuko finally looks up, and though he remains kneeling beside Katara’s body, he opens his arms. He says nothing.
Azula doesn’t need words to be encouraged.
She grins, vicious and crooked. “Nice knowing you, brother.”
He smiles as her lightning surges. Bright blue veins branching out like claws toward him.
Zuko receives it easily. The crackle slithering through his veins from his left hand as he aims his right—he aims it back at Azula. Just a single burst.
One sharp enough, forceful enough to find her. Straight in the chest, the same aim she made on Katara.
Azula falls. Flickering. Flickering.
Ribbons of lighting still twine around him like a leash, but Zuko sinks onto his heels before bowing, curling around Katara’s body.
Lightning, unlike fire, is never just heat—it’s not meant to be contained. Too unpredictable. Too intractable. Too lethal.
Yet… He feels none of its whip as he pools the rest of the current inside of him.
No more rage. No more pain.
Just a husk.
The willful wields the stars.
“Please…” he chokes out, the air in his lungs now far too charged. “Let me see her just one more time—”
He groans, feeling the hair on his body rise in protest. “Let me protect her one more time—”
His vision dots. His body weighing down. He lets the tip of his nose graze her cheek.
“Just one more time…”
One more.
One—
The world loses all sound.
If this is the first last time I see you,
I'll never look for somebody new.