(Zutara) Hold it Gently; My Heart Burns For You

The Siege of the North - Part Two

Glacier ice shifts and rocks beneath his feet. Echoes of battle howl with the raging winds at his back, battling Zuko through his trek across the Northern wasteland. No matter where he goes, no matter how far from conflict he tries to flee, war dogs his heels like a starving wolf-jackal. Screaming wind sinks its teeth into the spaces between his body and the Avatar's, trying to rip the unconscious boy from his slumped place on his back.

Zuko plods on, into the wind, daring it with each step to stand in his way.

~ ~ ~

Katara's open hand strikes the grass hard and insistent, becoming a fist when her rage refuses to ebb. Sokka doesn't bother to try and stop her, letting this episode burn itself out before he intervenes. Yue watches her without a sound. As usual, her silence speaks volumes.

"He took him!" Katara's fist strikes and clenches the singed grass. "Right out from under me! Zuko took Aang and I couldn't do anything!"

Fingers close over her shoulder, too weak to hold on when Katara throws them off. But they come back, gripping without being insistent, until she finally wilts under Yue's pale sympathetic eyes. They wait until they know they have Katara's attention, then cast around them. "This doesn't look like nothing," Yue whispers of the ruined Oasis.

Katara would feel bad for the desecration if she weren't so furious. "It wasn't enough."

"Enough to push a master firebender to the brink, under an incomplete moon no less."

Katara looks at the destruction she and Zuko caused. Ruts in the ground, burnt grass, craters in the earth filled with water and her growing, disastrous power. Jeong Jeong thought fire only burned and water only healed. Let him see this and still be so naïve. She stands amidst it now, and Sokka stops his surveying to look over at her.

"Zuko better pray we get Aang back before the moon rises."

"Never thought I'd fear for that moody ashhole's life," Sokka quips, void of his usual humour. He puts his hand on her shoulder. "You did everything you could, Katara, and now we need to do everything we can to get him back." He squeezes. "Zuko can't have gotten far. We'll find him. Aang's gonna be fine."

She can't say the same of Zuko. Not when she gets her hands on him.

~ ~ ~

Wind battles him. The ice beneath his feet caves in and tries swallow him. The cold sinks into his bones and threatens to freeze him. Katara made him feel seen then betrayed him. His father's war dog raised him then tried to kill him. The Avatar weighs his steps into snow that grips and drags at his legs.

But Zuko knows how to fight. He knows what it means to struggle until each breath feels like it's trying to choke you. Limbs so heavy with fatigue even thinking of lifting them is too much.

He drags them now, through the deep snows to the black maw of gaping stone. It's shallow, barely sheltered from the wind, but the only shelter for miles. It's a draft or death, so Zuko sets about the next fight. It's the only thing he knows.

~ ~ ~

She's too angry to be of any real use, so Sokka steers Appa. Through howling winds and punishing snows, her brother puts years of idle time trekking southern tundra to use. Even from the hight Appa soars, Sokka's eyes don't flinch as the winds change and blast sleet into their path. She doesn't know how he spots it, but in a blink of snow blind and stinging air, he's lowering them to a scar across the land.