(Zutara) Let Me Pretend; Your Soul is Winter Fire

City of Walls (and Secrets)

The Ever Night is coming to an end. Katara feels the chill leaving the air the further south the Watertribe skiff takes them. Yue will guide them wherever they go in the world, but it still feels like they're leaving a part of her behind.

Sokka won't forget her so easily, neither will Katara. Her brother stayed up with her as long as he could, gazing forlornly into the sky and his lost love. Looking so miserable, like he'll never be happy again, until his eyes would stay open no longer. If she didn't know her brother so well his cold shoulder to her sympathetic goodnight would seem resentful of her blood connection to the moon. But Katara knows her brother and knows two months is not enough time to grieve. Winter isn't even officially over but leaving the Northern Watertribe feels like they're leaving Yue, at least to Sokka. No, his withdrawal does not wound, her feelings are not so fragile. She'd take on as much of her brother's pain she could if such a thing were possible.

Her empathy's a doubled edged weapon, one which has given her similar cuts. There was a time, months ago, she'd held the same desire to heal another broken boy, his scars much more visible to the world, so many more across his soul. Some wounds may be put there by Katara herself. Well, she isn't without her own nick's or cuts either.

The night, the skiff, flickers between memories of another ship deck on another night. A hazy film goes over the peaceful evening, like she's seeing double. Iron underneath her feet, smoke chugging them along instead of sails filled by a brisk breeze. A sharp jaw beneath her fingers instead of watertribe carved wood and hollow bone. Her thumb tingles where a mouth pressed resonantly against the pad. Her lips tingle the same way.

Often and against her will, her mind wanders back to that stolen moment on the ice bridge. Lips she always suspected of being warm covering her own before Zuko threw himself onto the mercy of the ice.

At her request. At her order. Leaving her to think about him every day since in these quiet, smaller moments. Moments they used to share, reading scrolls, telling stories, sipping tea.

Moments she now fills wondering where he is, if Iroh is with him. Is he on his way back to the Fire Nation? Will his home have him back? Will he find a place there? Will he prepare for Aang's inevitable arrival?

And she worries, as often as Aunt Wu's fortune creeps up from the back of her mind, if he's okay.

It's not her place. In his life and in her own. She needs to focus on the future, towards the inevitability they rush towards as they head for the Earth Kingdom. Zuko would call it destiny, but Katara's not so sure.

Aang is the Avatar, it's his purpose to learn the elements and restore balance. That is inevitable. Stopping the Fire Nation is an occupational hazard to this role.

But what if Iroh decided to usurp his brother? What if the three nations truly worked together to stop the reign of fire? What if Ozai realised the horror his Nation had become – fat chance, but it draws the same question to Katara's restless mind:

What place does destiny have compared to doing the right thing?

Aang interrupts the circles her mind is determined to run in, coming to quietly stand beside her in the moonlit night. She knows whatever's troubling him is bad when he doesn't speak, doesn't even smile about something so simple she might have overlooked, distracted by her internal ramblings. His ability to glean enjoyment from the smallest things is a mastery beyond his control of the winds.

Those impress her. His optimism never ceases to astound.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks when the silence becomes too much for her.

"Nah, just a nightmare." But it opens a floodgate. A flow beyond her ability to calm. "I was in the Avatar State, but I was outside my body watching myself. It was scary. I was scary."