The Ice Heart
1.It’s the Painted Lady 2.The Blue Spirit 3.The Painted Spirit 4.The Blue Lady 5. The Water Bender 6. The Fire Lord’s Heart pt 1 7. The Fire Lord’s Heart pt 2 8. The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit 9. The Fire Lady 10.The Blood Bender 11. The Family Reunion 12. The Water Bender’s Baby 13. The Avatar 14. The Lie
After the wedding, Zuko returns home. His heart broken and empty.
After the wedding, Katara mourns for the loss of her love.
After the wedding, Aang returns to republic city, starting the designs for air Temple Island, leaving Katara alone just a week after their marriage.
Katara sits alone, opening gifts from her wedding, most are simple trinkets, but when she gets to the wooden box, wrapped in red and gold ribbon, her heart races; it’s the same wooden box Zuko had on his desk, all those many nights ago. Before Katara can realize, she has untied the ribbon on the box and is opening the lid.
Katara’s eyes squeeze shut, how can he do this? How can he still hold her heart and have her grasping for any piece of him to hold onto?
“Please,” She whispers, her heart pounding in her chest, “Don’t be the crown.”
Katara opens her eyes and her heart almost stops dead in her chest.
Inside the box are two golden hair pins, long, slender, and razor sharp. Under the pins is a note, written in Zuko’s hand.
Congratulations, I wish for you to find all the happiness you deserve. They belong to you, and always will, forever. -Zuko
Guilt wreaks through Katara as tears fall from her eyes. She wishes she could take back the words she said to him.
Katara hides away Zuko’s notes with her other notes, making sure that Aang will never find them.
Senna grows fast, everyday becoming more and more like her mother.
She learns how to water bend, but she can’t bend ice or freeze water, instead she can make normal water boiling hot. Water bender can bend hot water, but they cannot make water hot.
“What do I do?” Katara asks, as she eats lunch with Sokka, “What if people start to ask questions.”
“New bending abilities appear all the time,” Sokka dismisses, “That’s all it is.”
Katara purses her lips and watches as her child plays, rubbing her swelling abdomen in thought.
“Are you ever going to tell Aang?” Sokka asks, “About Senna.”
“No,” Katara says, “not Aang, not Zuko, not anyone.”
“What about her?” Sokka asks, gesturing to Senna, “Will you ever tell her who her father is?”
Fifteen years later:
Katara sits with Senna, now eighteen years old.
“What do you mean?” Senna asks, her face pale, “How am I the daughter of the Fire Lord?”
“Zuko and I were in love,” Katara explains, she touches the pendant of her necklace.
“Then why didn’t you marry him?” Senna asks.
Katara explains why she had to leave Zuko, tears well in her eyes as she thinks of the life she left.
“So he doesn’t that I exist?” Senna asks, Katara nods her head, “He’ll never know who I am?”
“He cannot,” Katara says, “If he finds out who you are, if anyone finds out who you are, it will put you in danger.”
“Don’t you think I should be able to decide that for myself?” Senna asks, standing to her feet in outrage “Spirits, mama, all my life I thought my father was dead, but he’s alive, and the Fire Lord?!”
“And it could be challenged that you’re the rightful heir to the throne,” Katara says, “if this got back to the Fire Nation, then Mai would sends assassins, after you, after me, after everyone we love.”
“I can’t, I can’t believe this,” Senna says, “You’ve lied to me, for years.”
“I was trying to protect you,” Katara weeps, “Please know that.”
“Is that why you sent me to be raised with another woman?” Senna asks, “Afraid that others will figure out who I am if they saw me with you?”
“Yes,” Katara says, “I wanted to protect you. You’re my daughter and I will never let anyone harm you.”
“He deserves to know who I am!” Senna screams, “I deserve to know my father!”
“If you go to him, you will die,” Katara says, standing to her feet as she tries to reason with her daughter, “I cannot let you do go to him.”
Senna and Katara argue for an hour, in the end Senna agrees not to seek out Zuko, but she also does not wish to see Katara anymore, so Katara leaves, her heart cleaved in two, the last words from her daughter still ringing in her ears.
“It would have been better if I never knew you either,” she had said, her voice calm in a quiet rage, she same rage that Katara has held many times.
Katara returns home, where she hopes the rest of her afternoon won’t be so heart breaking.
But of course, Katara cannot get as she wishes; she returns to find her home completely wrecked, as if a tornado had torn through it.
“What’s going on here!?” Katara gapes, she looks to her two oldest children who are jumping on the couch.
“Tenzin can bend!” Bumi and Kya laugh, just as Aang and Tenzin breeze into the room on air balls.
“AANG!” Katara gapes in shock.
“Hey Katara!” he laughs, standing up, “Is everything alright?”
“Our house is in ruins,” Katara gapes, anger boils in her chest.
“Don’t worry,” Aang laughs, “Don’t worry, I’ll help clean it up, but baby, he’s an air bender!”
“I can see that,” Katara says, Tenzin races back into the room. Katara looks to all the broken pieces of furniture.
“Look what I can do mama!” he beams, he bends air at the coffee table and it flips over.
“Tenzin!” Katara gapes, “That’s wonderful baby, but we don’t bend inside.”
“Daddy said it was alright,” Tenzin pouts.
“Well it’s not,” Katara says, glaring at Aang, “No more bending inside, okay?”
“Okay mama,” Tenzin says, “Daddy says he’s going to take me to the temple.”
Katara looks to Aang and then back to the children.
“Go to your rooms,” Katara says, “if there’s a mess, clean it up.”
“Yes mama!” the three say, running to their rooms quickly.
Katara looks at Aang and then places her hands on her hips.
“Are you alright?” he asks, “You look like you’ve been crying.”
“What does he mean, when he said that you’re talking him to the temple?” Katara asks.
“Air Temple Island,” Aang says with a smile, “it’s built right off the coast of Republic City. He’s an air bender, and he’s going to be a nomad. I am going to raise him traditionally, he needs to be raised in the temple.”
“Excuse me?!” Katara snaps, “Aang the air nomads raised children away from their mothers. You expect me to just stand aside as you take our son away from me?! Are you insane?!”
“I know, it’s hard, but it’s the right way,” Aang says, “I was raised a nomad, we are the last of our kind, he needs to be raised properly.”
“No,” Katara breathes, “No, Aang his is my son, I will not let you just take him away, he will be raised as we have raised out other children.”
Aang and Katara argue, screaming and shouting until they’re both hoarse.
“You’re so hypocritical!” Aang accuses, making Katara step back in shock, “You’re the one who wanted a traditional Water Tribe wedding. Why is it wrong for me to want to raise our son traditionally?!”
“I wedding and a child are two different things!” Katara shouts, “Besides, it’s not like you’re living in tradition!”
“I’m the avatar!” Aang snaps back, “I didn’t have a choice!”
“And you’re going to take that choice away from our son! Who’s the hypocrite now?!”
“Why must you be so dramatic about these things?!” Katara glares at Aang in anger, her hands clenched at her side, she turns away from Aang and storms towards the door, “Where are you going?!”
“I can’t even look at you right now!” Katara shouts back, she slams the door behind her and then bends the snow on her doorstep to block the door with ice, ice as cold and hard as her heart.
Katara storms through town, each step she takes, freezes the snow under her foot.
“Master Katara?” a meek voice asks.
“WHAT?!” she snaps, turning on the poor messenger boy who flinches in fear. Katara’s eyes widen in shock, she takes a deep breath and then looks to the boy again.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes, “I’m sorry.”
“A letter for you,” he stammers, handing Katara the envelope, “It came by hawk this morning.”
Katara looks at the envelope, the red envelope, trimmed with gold, the same kind colour of gold as the pins in her hair.
“It’s from the Fire Nation,” Katara gapes, the boy nods and then bows before hurrying away, practically sprinting to get away from Katara’s wrath.
Katara opens the letter, her hands shaking in fear of what she might read.
As she stares at the elegant black letters, her stomach sinks to her knees.
Iroh is dead.
@squishysuho @waitingtillthesmilescomeback
