An update! Yay! But with this long awaited update, I have to dish out some chapter warnings as well. Please read them and consider not reading if any of the listed topics could potentially trigger you! Chapter warnings: blood, self-inflicted wounds, suicide, guilt, and grief
Fire. That’s the closest thing I could compare this burning in my veins to. Fire was hot, and yet, not hot enough to describe the heat licking through every part of me. It was excruciating. But not because of pain. Instead, it was a maddening sort of heat, it seared its way through my body only to leave a roaring desire in its wake. One I craved more of to the point where it felt as if my very sanity was slipping further with every second I was parted from him.
Seokjin.
His first several months back were bliss. He was different. The man I loved, but also a stranger. One I still didn’t quite fully comprehend even now, though, I wasn’t sure I was capable of comprehending much regardless. All I could think about was him. All I wanted was the fire he created within me. The hunger, the desire, the need. It all culminated deep within me and consumed every waking moment of mine. We basked in it in the beginning. There was no time when we weren’t bathing in that ecstasy our bodies sought from one another. He was my very breath and every beat my heart had to give. It was only fair he take it since his no longer beat for him.
That was until he no longer allowed me to. Now I burned with something richer than the sweet heat I’d come to expect when with him. Since he’d taken that away from me, the once addictive maelstrom inside me curdled. My heart continuing to pump the rot of what we once had through my body in agonizing waves.
“Seokjin! Please!”
My cries echoed off the tall ceilings, the tear tracks on my cheeks long since dried though sobs still wracked through me. The sides of my fists were bruised from how hard and long I’d been beating on the locked door of what used to be our chambers. The door that was now stained red with the blood that is seeping through the tips of my fingers where I had raked my nails down the thick wood. The dull throb was nothing compared to the scorching need racing inside me. I screamed in frustration, pounding harder against the door to my prison. Yes. This place was no longer paradise. The time we shared in here was no more than a phantom of a memory. Seokjin was my paradise now.
Only he could sate this unending torture within me.
My pleas rang in my ears once more. Not as loud as they had been a few hours ago. I’d cried and screamed so much that my throat had turned sore. No doubt, it’d be gone by morning. My chest heaved with my efforts, aching hands slapping against the door once more until the faintest of clicks was heard under my attack. I let out a whoosh of relief as I stumbled back from the door, wiping my hands on the skirt of my dress as it swung open to reveal the very man my desperate cries had been trying to reach.
The expression of grief on his face was unlike him. Though, I’d been seeing it more and more over the past couple of weeks. His eyes used to be full of light and when he looked at me, I could see how much he loved and adored me. But now, all I can see is regret and sadness. That’s all he ever looked at me with now. I huffed in annoyance. I hated that look. I hated even more that I didn’t understand why it’s all he ever showed me anymore. He stood in the doorway, his feet rooted to the spot, as if he couldn’t bring himself to enter the room that had belonged to him only a short while ago.
I darted forward, intent on going to him if he refused to come to me.
“Seokjin, my love.” I murmured breathlessly, my voice coming out scratchy and nearly unrecognizable. “You came for me.”
I wrapped my arms around him, part of me infinitely relieved to have him so close again. The fire raging inside me quieted momentarily. I had come to realize that it wouldn’t last. His presence would soothe the need for a bit, but I needed more. I always needed more. His arms hesitantly came up to grip my shoulders, gently pushing me away. I resisted the withdrawal, fisting the material of his jacket tightly despite the stabbing pain radiating in my hands.
“Y/N…”
“You came for me.” I repeated, desperation making me sound hysterical. “You didn’t leave me. Don’t you see? You love me. I know you do!”
“Of course I do. That was never in question.”
His soft voice only served to aggravate me further. I jerked my face up to meet his gaze. Those eyes so filled with regret burning into my soul as he stared back. I hated that look.
“Then why are you pushing me away?” I yelled, wrenching myself out of his hold only to immediately regret it when pain lanced through every last nerve of mine.
It quelled the rage, almost as if it knew that acting this way wouldn’t get me what I wanted.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology felt flat rolling off my tongue, but I didn’t have to mean it to get what I needed. I lifted my hands, running them up his chest to his shoulders.
“Don’t be mad. Let me make it up to you.” I whispered, peering up at him.
He winced, dragging his gaze from mine. He grasped my wrists, pulling them off him again only to pause upon seeing the state my hands were in. Sadness. Regret. Always fucking sadness and regret. He gently lifted my fingers, laying them over his lips as he sighed. My body’s response was instantaneous, moving closer to his as I reached for him again.
But he didn’t let me.
He dropped my arms in the next second, schooling his features into a stern expression, lips pressing into a hard line as he looked down at me.
“You can’t keep doing this, Y/N.”
“Seokjin-“
“No. Listen to me. This isn’t healthy. You won’t eat, you won’t sleep, and now you’re injuring yourself.”
“My love…” I cooed, making my voice as docile as possible in its raw cadence. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can be together, just like it used to be-“
“No.” Seokjin growled, anger flashing into his eyes.
At least it wasn’t sadness and regret.
“Yes.” I snapped back. “Bite me. I need you, Seokjin. It hurts when you’re not here. Please. I don’t want it to hurt anymore. Make me feel good.”
“No!” He snarled, his heightened emotions revealing the beast inside him.
His top lip curled, flashing one sharp fang that sent my heart into overdrive as it beat against my rib cage harder. I took a step towards him, my body craving that ecstasy I knew it could provide me. He jerked back, tamping down his anger for a bit of control before facing me again. The stern nature from before had morphed into a hardness that I had never witnessed in him. He gripped my arm, firm enough to drag me over to the bed and sit me down.
“You will remain here, in our quarters, until you’re no longer suffering from withdrawals. You will maintain a schedule that I will make sure the house staff keep you on. You will eat. You will sleep. You will stop hurting yourself in your desperate attempts to garner sympathy from me. To ensure this, I’ll be leaving for a while.”
“You… what?”
“I’m removing temptation. I will return when the house staff say it is safe to do so.”
If he hadn’t been standing directly in front of me, I would have jumped from the bed in my anger.
“You’re leaving? How dare you decide this on your own!”
“I’m doing this for your own good.”
He turned his back on me, the supernatural pace of his retreating steps didn’t even give me enough time to get back on my feet and follow him to the door. I reached it right as he slammed it closed behind him, the lock mechanism engaging with a finality that left me furious.
“Seokjin!”
My pleas had turned to cursing his name. My fists slamming against the door once more before turning to kicks. I dove my bloodied fingers into my hair, yanking on the roots as I paced the room. Every noise of frustration escaping me sounded inhuman. My anger and desperation mixing into one that left me feeling like a caged animal. The fire inside me grew, throwing every inch of me into agony now that it knew it would no longer be fed. I screamed, digging my fingers into the skin of my arms and clawing it away in an attempt to release it.
Blood ran like dozens of tiny streams down my flesh. But no matter how much I bled, the heat never dissipated. I looked around wildly, needing something to show him that leaving me wasn’t an option. He couldn’t just leave me like this.
He loves me.
Seokjin wouldn’t just leave me. He wouldn’t.
But he is.
I have to stop him. He can’t leave. He can’t leave. He can’t leave. My gaze landed on the alcove in the corner of the room where Seokjin and I had made a small library out of our most favorite novels. I rushed over to it, throwing aside the loveseat that we had found ourselves tangled together on, on more than one occasion. I flipped the lock over the windows, pushing them open and letting the shutters slam against the side of the house. I flinched against the smattering of rain pelting my face like little icicles. I hadn’t even noticed it had been raining.
The sky was dark apart from the intermittent bolts of lightning flashing through it. How fitting. The storm outside suiting the turmoil within me as I stepped onto the window ledge. I looked down at the pitch blackness below me, expecting some kind of fear to flicker through me. But there was nothing other than the fury and desperation.
He can’t leave me.
The memory was ripped away and suddenly, I was back in Jin’s trailer. He watched me closely and I briefly wondered how long I had been sucked into my own head. Though I was no longer in the depths of memories I had forgotten, my brain conjured images of it bright as day. Blood, pain, teeth. Jin’s teeth. Fangs. The word associated with the revelation sounded laughable in my mind. Vampires weren’t real. But… I met his gaze, my heart aching at what I found.
Sadness and regret.
“Did I…” I swallowed hard, not sure how to begin describing the scene I had just relived.
“You jumped.” He murmured, slowly dragging his eyes from me as they turned distant.
My heart cinched at the confirmation. I couldn’t imagine how it must have felt for him to have found me like that. While part of me cursed myself for having made such a choice, I also couldn’t fault her. I felt everything she felt. To her, death was preferable to a life that she felt was being forcibly taken from her.
“I’m sorry.” I whispered, the crashing thunder outside nearly overriding my hushed tone.
Jin flicked his gaze back to me, a singular shake of his head telling me it was him who should be apologizing.
“Don’t apologize to your murderer.”
“Jin, you didn’t kill me.”
“I may not have physically forced you to jump, but every despicable decision I made where you were concerned led to you ending up that way.”
“You didn’t know…”
“But I left you there.” He bit out, his jaw clenching. “I turned my back on you and left you to figure it out, alone.”
I pushed myself off the table to my knees, swapping Jin’s earlier position to kneel before him this time. My hands found his cheeks like it was second nature, drawing his attention back to me.
“You were doing what you thought was right. I don’t blame you.”
His expression remained pinched, though the burden of his guilt appeared lighter in his gaze as it searched mine. He cupped my chin in his hand, rubbing his thumb across the line of my jaw in a soft caress.
“Thank you.”
I knew my words weren’t enough to rid him entirely of the responsibility he felt he bears, but they were something he needed to hear. I couldn’t imagine living as long as he has and carrying that remorse. Living every day after witnessing something so traumatizing. Burdened with the guilt of believing yourself to be responsible for someone you were so close to choosing such a fate. I felt how devastating it was to hear he was leaving. How utterly desperate I was to keep that from happening at any cost. And yet, I hated myself for putting him through that. It was strange to think about myself in a past life. Even stranger to be reminiscing that time with the same man from then, now.
The gentle taps against my cheek brought me out of my thoughts. I hadn’t even realized I slipped into them in my attempt to understand his grief. I blinked, focusing on him to find that that intensity in his dark gaze still lingering.
“How are you?”
The question was soft spoken in the silence between us. Only the occasional rumble of thunder overhead filling that space otherwise. I knew the question wasn’t asked casually like it would have been in any other circumstance. Jin had arguably dropped one of the most earth-shattering bombs on me he could have, and, honestly, if I hadn’t already experienced all the other crazy shit in my life, I might not have believed him. Past lives? Vampires? Not to mention, I had, once upon a time, been the lover of one?
And let’s not forget that I had just been making out with him but a short time ago as well. Apparently, I’m still into it.
“I don’t know.” I answer honestly. “I believe you. It makes too much sense for me to not trust that you’re telling me the truth. I guess I just haven’t had time to… process it fully.”
He hummed, tracing the shape of my cheek.
“You’ve always been more… receptive to things that may otherwise seem impossible.”
“Are the others like you?”
Jin let his hand drop, my own form retreating slightly as he did so.
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
My tone came out a little exasperated. I was tired of the way everyone kept talking in riddles. I had hoped that finding out my shared past with Jin would grant me more answers, even if the lot of them were against it.
“It means that while they’re all immortal more or less, they’re not like me.”
“So they’re not…”
He lifted a brow, the slight curve of his lips betraying his amusement as I hesitated on the word.
“Vampires? No.”
“Then what are they?”
He shook his head. “Not my secrets to tell.”
“Funny because everyone else seems to defer to you and won’t tell me anything.”
He sighs. “I know you’re frustrated, but the things we’re keeping from you are to protect you.”
“Is it? Or are you trying to protect yourselves?”
“I told you the worst of my secrets.”
I stood up, frustration welling up within me again. I was hitting another wall. Just when I thought I was making progress, figuring things out, I’m being shut out again. Angry, I turned my back to him, snatching my jacket from the back of the chair I’d discarded it over earlier. I could feel him behind me as I shoved my arms into the sleeves, the cold and soaked fabric making me shiver.
“No.” I murmured, feeling angry, but most of all, hurt. “If that was the worst secret you’re keeping from me, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep me in the dark.”
I headed for the door, not confident that if I spared him a glance, I would be able to hold onto my anger. The storm outside caught the door as I swung it open, nearly slamming it into the side of the trailer before I managed the grab the edge of it to keep that from happening. As I turned to close it back, I took one last look into the house. Jin stood beside the chair my jacket had been draped over, his eyes locked onto me and the raging storm around me.
My heart gave a heavy lurch as I thought about the last memory he’d had of me in my past life. It was storming that night he’d lost me too. And though the circumstances were different this time, the pain in the depths of his gaze was exactly what I knew I’d have seen had I lived that night.
Sokka and Katara are both clearly literate. It's worth pointing out that this is a bit unusual, historically. Before the industrial revolution, literacy was chiefly associated with the state apparatus in state-dominated societies or with certain religious practices. The upper-classes in hierarchical, state-based societies have particular interest in literacy. It makes absolute sense that Fire Nation upper class is really into it. Same with the Earth Kingdom nobles and the Northern Water Tribe elite. For the Air Nomads, literacy likely had an important religious function.
On the other hand, it's not clear if the Southern Water Tribe/Tribes ever had anything resembling a state, and toward the end of the Hundreds Years War they definitely do not. in our own world, some Iñupiat and Inuit groups are nomadic or semi-nomadic, while others are not. We really don't get a sense of what is typical in the SWT. If Sokka and Katara's subtribe is often nomadic, they are probably not carrying around a whole lot of records with them.* It's pretty clear that the SWT does not have anything resembling a school system, and it's not clear how relevant or useful reading and writing is to their everyday lives. Admittedly, we do see Hakoda use writing to send a message to Bato, so perhaps writing is commonly used by the SWT in warfare, but we can't be certain. Beyond that, we don't know what kind of utility writing might have to SWT society, or who exactly is likely to learn how to read.
Yet both Sokka and Katara are clearly literate. Writing and reading are natural to them.
For Zuko, Azula, Mai, Ty Lee, Yue, Aang, etc. learning to read was a normal and expected part of growing up in their society. However, we have reason to doubt the same is true in the SWT. Teaching Sokka and Katara to read was a deliberate choice by someone, by their parents or grandparents or someone else. Someone within their tribe or their family believed that it was important for them to learn literacy. And given that the SWT does not have a school system, someone close to them almost certainly taught the siblings how to read. Perhaps it was Hakoda, Kya, Bato, or Kanna, or perhaps it was someone else. Either way, this decision and this teaching probably has some emotional significance to the water siblings.
*It's possible that the Southern Water Tribe might rely on oral tradition to keep their history and legends, but it's also possible they might have some sort of equivalent of the winter counts of the plains Native Americans, albeit likely with writing included alongside or instead of pictographs.
I saw this trend on x(Twitter) of drawing zuko in southern water tribe parka with different objects/ cute hats on him based on the picture above (credits to my friend @ zutaraslife on x! )
so I decided why not PUT IZUMI ON HIS HEAD
ehehe here's firelord zuko giving his daughter izumi a shoulder ride :)
The army camp quickly came into view. Several blue tents spread out by the bay where wooden boats laid anchored. Wolf Warriors rushed about carrying out their tasks. It was far from the ridged precise formation of the North.
Ozai immediately felt eyes on him as soon as they entered the camp. Time on the run had sharpened his senses to near perfection. He braced himself for a fight, though he knew they were among supposed allies.
They needed the South’s strength to pull off the coup successfully this time. It would be simple enough. They all have the same goals here, and with the chief’s children by Ozai’s side there was no way-
“Little brother! Little sister!” a voice called out in Water Tongue.
“Big brothers!” Sokka responded with glee.
He grabbed Katara’s hand and ran other to the group of men thrilled to see them, leaving Ozai alone. The man stood there momently shocked. More Wolf Warriors gathered around him, clutching their weapons and sizing him up.
Ozai swore under his breath. His mind had so graciously removed his tactics for swaying royal court members, even then most of it hinged on his status as Second-born Fire Prince.
‘Calm yourself.’ Ozai thought. ‘You’re here for peace. Not war. Besides Sokka and Katara were right over-‘ He glanced over and saw that the siblings were completely gone.
For Agni’s sake!
“You lost, ashmaker?”
Ozai cleared his throat.
“Hello.” He said in his broken Water Tongue. “Ozai here.”
The men glanced at each other confused.
“Peace brothers. He is the ally our contacts spoke of.” Bato spoke up. “A Fire Nation deserter and true brother in arms.”
The Wolf Warriors backed off, assured by Bato’s words. Ozai almost sighed out loud with relief at the familiar face.
