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

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Katara's glad Blue's putting her through drills tonight. She's desperate for the chance to turn her brain off, simply move between the stances he's been teaching her. Silence isn't something she's used to valuing, not when she was growing up in a community so small she could hear the newborns crying from her tent. Not now while sharing the small Earth City house with three rambunctious teenagers. Quiet comes with sleep. Wishing for it makes her stomach curdle. The last time she truly had silence to value was when she was locked in a tiny room with shackles on her hands. And then without shackles, but still silence would stretch between Pai Sho moves.

Zuko would whittle those long hours down as he read scrolls in his rock-salt rasp, lulling her into light sleep.

Blue's fist slips through her loose guard and stops just short of cutting up into her solar plexus, the tips of his fingers resting against her soft belly. He cuts her a look, then decides she hasn't learned her lesson and closes the hand into a tight, precise jab up into her stomach.

"Shit," she wheezes, moving back. That, more than her lax attention, causes Blue to start up. She can practically feel his wide, surprised expression behind the mask as she waves him off. "I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not that."

He ignores her and takes hold of her shoulders, pulling her up from her bent over position. Miming with his hand, he moves it up from stomach to chest to mimic his breathing in a smooth pattern, guiding her through the instinct to bend back over and gasp instead of keeping her airwaves straight and unobstructed.

She's a waterbender, she should know a hose with a kink in it can't run. But breathing is a firebenders domain, never something she's concerned herself with beyond her stamina for training.

"Okay, I'm fine." She pushes him back with a hand to his chest when he tries to stay. "I said I'm fine. Let's get back to training."

Blue crosses his arms, shaking his head.

"I said I'm fine. I can keep going," Katara gets out through gritted teeth.

He shakes his head again.

"Fine!" she snaps. "So, we're done with training? We can stop wasting our time going through stances I already know." She straightens up. "I want to go to the Lower Ring."

Blue actually laughs at her.

"You think I can't? You've been teaching me this for a few weeks, and it's not like I couldn't defend myself before. I think I'm more than ready to go out there."

Blue stops laughing when he realizes she's serious. Shaking his head more firmly this time, he makes an X across his chest with his arms.

Defensiveness rises in Katara, hot and ugly. "So, you'd rather keep coddling me? Don't you have duties you need to attend to in the Lower Ring?"

Blue shrugs, tilting his hand back and forth in his so-so gesture. Of course, it's all on his time. Whatever he decides is right or wrong, no real justice system he operates on, just whatever's caught his attention.

The idea that she's distracting him reignites all the frustration she's been carrying around for three days, ever since she ran out of Pao's. The fact she hasn't seen any Dai Li agents since is not a comfort. She'll wake in cold sweats after nightmares of waves of green and black bursting through the walls of their temporary home to swallow her, Sokka, Aang and Toph until there's nothing but a flat, listless sea. No sign they were ever there at all.

And now Blue is noticing how slow she's moving, how unfocused she is even as she pulls him away from his duties. Distracts him from the people of Ba Sing Se who really need him.

"We can go find some," she insists. It makes her feel sick, the idea someone out there might need him and she's keeping him busy.

Blue shakes his head again.