The Dragon and The Ocean // Zutara

Energy

I wake up to see that Katara is still sleeping. Her head is still rested on my shoulder and from the looks of it, she slept in the same position the whole night. She so calm like this, when she sin't worried about anything. When she isn't worried about me. I keep still so that I don't wake her.

I realize that my chest and stomach are very sore and almost tight. I don't ever remember my face feeling this way. Of course my eye was just burned, not struck with lightning. Moving my hand up to my wound, I find that whenever I touch it, it still feels like shocks of pain are running throughout my entire body.

I feel Katara move on my arm. I look over to see that she has woken up. She rubs her eyes and from what I can tell she seems much better then she was last night, which I'm happy for. She groans slightly and then looks up at me.

"Good morning beautiful." I whisper to her with a slight smile. 

"Morning." she says rubbing her eyes again with a small smile of her own. 

"Sleep well?" I ask her as I make sure to grab a gentle hold of her hand.

"I did." She responds, sitting up more and putting her weight on her elbow. "How about you?"

"I slept perfect." I answer, giving her a small kiss on the cheek. She smiles bigger. It's good to see her smile.

"How was the pain? Did I hurt you last night?" she asks with a tone that changes to worried.

"The pain was noticeable  but once I fell asleep I was fine. And no you didn't hurt me last night, you slept in the same position all night." I reply to her, with a playful eye roll. I know she is worried about me so I just brush it off.

"That's good. Shall we do another healing session?" she asks me, getting up out of the bed.

I shake my head, not wanting to exhaust Katara before the day barely even starts. However, she doesn't really give me that choice and gets up to get the water. Instead of going into the bathroom to get a bowl, she just makes the bending motions and a nice steam of water comes out of the bathroom, with the bowl riding on top of it.

She walks around to the other side of the bed and bends the bowl down onto the table, and streams the water into it. She then helps me sit up, which produces noticeably less pain. I am able to slowly hold my arms out by myself and I know that means I am already making progress.

I hold my arms out shakily as Katara unwraps the bandage from my body. Once she is done she asks me to lay down by myself, going as slow as possible. If that was a test, I would have failed it because I basically fell back on the bed due to the pain being so intense.

"You wound is looking much better than yesterday." Katara says to me after looking at it for a few seconds. "It isn't as red as yesterday. It's more of a deep orange, which is good." It still doesn't sound great or feels great but, she is the expert. 

I just nod to her and make a sound of agreement as she bends the water over the wound. I brace for the pain and she places the water on the burn. It stings, like usual, but then the pain goes away. The water glows and I can almost feel the relaxation sweeping over my body.

Katara doesn't move the water at all, which seems unusual, but I just let her do her thing. I watch her as she closes her eyes and focuses on water. She breathes steadily and evenly. I match my breathing to her's. I close my eyes as well and also focus on the energy of the water.

I can feel it flowing but it is faint. When I firebend, the energy flow is much more significant and apparent to me. I am honestly surprised that I am even able to feel the energy that comes from the water. Curious, I focus on the energy to feel it flow through Katara.

I can slightly feel the energy enter through her hands and up her arm. It flows down from there and is gathered in the stomach. Uncle once told me that the stomach is the source of Chi. That must be where Katara's healing abilities come from. I feel the energy go up from her stomach to her other arm and down that to her hand and back into the water.

I immediately think of the redirection of lighting, which takes a very similar path to Katara's energy. Just as it is almost exhausting to redirect lightning, it is exhausting to heal a wound. But Katara does it anyway, without complaining. And all of the time too. 

Still, I can't imagine how tired she must be, especially after a session. This time, I don't let her continue healing. She can't waste anymore energy on me. Slowly and painlessly, I lift my arm up and pull her hands aways from the wound slightly. Katara notices this gesture and bends the water into the bowl quickly. 

"Is something wrong?" she asks frantically, her eyes gazing over me in a frantic way. 

"Yes. I know how tiring it is for you to conduct these sessions. I can't have you wasting that much energy on me." I tell her trying to sound sincere.

"Zuko," Katara says, "I know how hard it is for you to be at this weaker state, but I promise, I'm only doing what is best for you. I don't care how much energy I have to give to you, especially if it keeps you alive. How about this, if I can complete this healing secession, then we can try to go for a walk today. That way you can regain some of your strength on your own."

I nod, knowing that this is probably the best I can do at the moment, since eI can't compete with her stubbornness. Hopefully I can convince her to lower the number of sessions a day, that way she won't be as tired. 

Katara takes about 5 more minutes of healing and she leaves one of those energy barriers on my wound which muffles pain. She sits me up carefully and wraps the bandage around me again. Unlike last night however, this process is pretty much painless, which I am grateful for.

Thanks for reading!