lmao i see the live action has led to an uptick in activity w my metas. may i interest any of you in my new very sad canon-compliant zutara songfic:
Two Slow Dancers
A nightmare, a dream. A house made of wood, a lily made of fire. A hole in the heart, a place in the world.
In the one-year space between the war's end and Iroh's gathering in Ba Sing Se, Katara and Zuko weave around each other, discovering where they truly belong in a world searching for peace. Or, my attempt at seeing where Katara becomes who she is in LoK.
Loosely based on the song of the same name by Mitski.
Katara crawls in slowly to the other side of the tent, but even with her body up against the side of it, there's less than a foot of space between them and she can feel Zuko's body heat beside her.
That dizzying warmth of his is as intoxicating as it is frightening. She reflexively reaches out to her element and finds the river easily.
It's there if she needs it.
She feels foolish now for going along with everything. For agreeing to this insane idea. She doesn't know this man. She doesn't trust this man. And now she's agreed to sleep beside him and pretend to be his wife.
—
The self-indulgent reluctant travel companions fic that I’ve wanted to write since forever
katara doesn't tell sokka about her crush on zuko. suki and toph don't understand how sokka hasn't figured it out. but neither has zuko. and zuko's been mooning over her just as long as she has been mooning over him (also the phrase 'mooning' actually comes from their relationship bc everyone loved their love.)
they just spent an afternoon training with aang when zuko accidently lets it slip that he has a crush on her. they hide it from everyone, especially sokka, beacuse katara is afraid that sokka will go big brother mode on zuko, and she likes her boyfriend alive thank you very much.
after the war, zuko is still healing. they dote on each other bc it's them, but no one else has figured it out, except toph and suki because its toph and suki they know everthing.
sokka catches them kissing while katara is in the middle of a healing session and starts screaming.
zuko and katara are preparing for the worst.
but then they realize sokka is happy screaming.
"AHHHHHHH"
he runs over to them and hugs them both.
"MY SISTER AND MY BEST FRIEND THIS IS SO COOL!"
he goes on like this and asks them all about their relationship, supporting them through their story.
"you're really not mad?" katara asks.
"no, i'm not mad. i wish you didn't hide it from me, but i understand. also- my best friend is my brother now! you better not mess this up," sokka says to katara. sokka skips out of zuko's room as well as he can on a broken leg.
zuko turns to katara and says, "i love you."
they hear sokka screaming from behind the door.
"GO AWAY SOKKA!" katara screams. then, she says to zuko, "i love you too."
Inspired by @hayleynfoster’s comic and some hilarious headcannons about the littlest steambaby with Hayley and @favlie
Read it on AO3
1.
The day Avatar Aang comes to meet his second niece, Fire Lord Zuko refuses to let his youngest child out of sight. Katara rolls her eyes, and reminds her husband that neither of their children had ended up psychologically disturbed because of their flights. “Not,” she adds, pointing at Aang, “that I am allowing a repeat, but I think just holding her while firmly on the ground will be fine.”
“Mmmm,” Zuko hesitates, curling Kallik closer to his chest. Her big eyes blink up at the adults guileless from her blanket. “No.”
“You let Azula hold her!” Aang argues.
“She doesn’t do anything with the babies!” Zuko shoots back. It’s not strictly true, he knows, but his sister’s ritual with newborns is unsettling in a much different way. She simply stares deep into each child’s eyes upon being handed them, until some kind of understanding passes between her and the baby. Results have varied, but the most important part is that there was no threat to life and limb.
Katara’s raised eyebrow says that she also doesn’t believe Zuko’s words, but she doesn’t say anything. They are, after all, a united front - to the children, to politicians, to their friends. In the privacy of their chambers, however, he knows he will be hearing about this.
2.
Katara and Zuko take the kids to spend Kallik’s first birthday at the South Pole. It’s a tradition they’ve observed with all three, and Zuko always looks forward to going to visit her family. The house is loud and chaotic, full to bursting with people, the exact opposite of his own lonely childhood. There is no posturing, and everyone loves and squabbles openly. On this particular visit, they have overlapped with Aang’s stay with Sokka and Suki, so Gran-Gran’s house is in even more of an uproar than usual by the time Zuko and Katara arrive.
Kya immediately dashes off to coo over her little cousins as they toddle around behind Pakku, pretending to be otter penguins. Satoshi runs to the kitchen to be showered in kisses and cookies from Gran-Gran. Hakoda finds them barely out of their parkas and already thoroughly abandoned.
“I could’ve sworn you had at least one other child,” he tells Katara, scratching his head as he pretends to search for his missing grandchildren. She laughs and hugs her father tight. Neither of them let go for long moments, and Zuko’s throat feels tight when he notices his father-in-law’s misty eyes. He looks down at Kallik, thinks of his other two children, and wonders for the thousandth time how Hakoda could ever forgive him for keeping Katara so far away. It’s why he hands his daughter over easily when her grandfather waggles his fingers expectantly and says, “Alright, give her here.”
Hakoda settles Kallik on his hip with practiced ease, and pulls Zuko into a brief hug with his free arm. “Good to see you, son.”
Zuko clears his throat. “You too,” he says, and Katara laughs softly at his awkward shuffling, amused by how he doesn’t know what to do with his hands without a baby in his arms. She answers his question by lacing their fingers together as she leads him deeper into the house to find her brother and their friends seated around the hearth fire watching the kids run around.
Hugs are exchanged all around, and Zuko settles into their familiar company. Hakoda joins them after taking Kallik to say hello to Gran-Gran and Pakku, and bounces the baby on his knee to make her laugh. Aang makes silly faces at her that have her letting out piercing giggles and reaching out to try and grab at the wooden beads of his necklace.
“Well clearly she’s bored of me,” Hakoda says, making to hand her off to her uncle. “Here you go -” Zuko leans over and intercepts.
“Oh no. No baby catapult,” he says, shaking his head.
Aang gives him a pout to rival Momo. “Come on, we’re indoors!” Katara clears her throat, and when Zuko glances over, her eyes are narrowed at him. With a sigh, he holds Kallik out to Aang.
“Fine. But I’m watching you.”
3.
Extended family vacations to Ember Island always sound like a good idea to Katara. At first. When her husband is burnt out and aching, and the kids are climbing the walls, and she just wants to lie in the sun with a book, it seems like the cure for everything.
And then they arrive. Somehow, much like she forgets the excruciating pain of childbirth, she never recalls the onslaught of chaos and catastrophe that comes every vacation. Like the time Sokka got stung by a jelly-ray. Or the time Suki and Zuko got in a fight about disciplining each other’s kids. Or the time every single one of the kids managed to get sunburnt and couldn’t sleep. Every year, it’s always something, and somehow, it usually ends up being at least partially her problem to solve.
This year, though, is somehow turning out alright. They reach day three without major incident, and almost entirely without tears - a near miracle for a vacation involving five children under the age of ten.
“I’m almost done with my first book already,” she tells Zuko as they rock slowly in a hammock on the deck, whispering in hopes of keeping any listening spirits from knowing that she’s gotten her hopes up.
“Good, you deserve the break,” Zuko says. He looks on the verge of sleep despite the fact that the sun is still climbing in the sky. The dark circles beneath his eyes are already faded almost to nothing. She sighs happily and grabs her book, but before she can actually crack it open, she hears Toph cackling and her Mom Senses light up. Zuko calls after her in surprise as she leaves the hammock swaying wildly behind her, but she doesn’t look back on her way to the beach.
When she arrives, it is just in time to see Toph pick up Kallik, a wicked smile on her face. Sokka and Suki’s twins are further down the beach standing beside Aang, both of them jumping up and down with excitement, waiting for something.
“Go long, Twinkle Toes!” Katara’s eyes go wide, and faster than should be possible, she reaches them, yanking Kallik out of Toph’s hands. “Hey!”
“Absolutely not!” Katara says, scowling.
“I was gonna catch her!” Aang shouts. Katara shakes her head.
“This is not happening. No way.” Then, silently lamenting the loss of quiet time with her husband, Katara looks at the twins and asks, “Who wants to go get some ice cream?
4.
At Zuko’s request, his birthday is not a big deal with his family. It’s a combination of the fact that the entire Fire Nation loses its mind about the day anyway, so he is all but forced to spend a day attending a festival in his honor, and the fact that he is used to his birthday being a marker of all the disappointments he has been in the past year. It is a long-standing compromise with his wife that she is allowed to throw him a small, family-only party, to be kept within the bounds of the garden. He enjoys the excuse to get everyone together without a barrage of meetings involved, and the rest of their family is so boisterous in comparison to him, he can almost forget that the day has anything to do with him at all.
For his thirtieth birthday, he makes the further concession of allowing Uncle to set up his new phonograph so there could be dancing. Zuko is manning the crank, watching Katara and Kya swing each other around while Aang sits next to him, flipping through the records looking for the right song.
“Do you have a request too?” Zuko hears him ask, and turns to see Kallik has toddled away from Uncle Iroh and approached the Avatar. She puts her hands on his knees and starts bouncing, flashing him a smile that shows all of her new teeth. “You want upsies?” Aang coos, and reaches to scoop her up by the armpits. Zuko clears his throat loudly, shooting Aang his best murder eyes, and the Avatar shrinks back into the collar of his robes a little. “What about dance party?” He lets Kallik grab onto his fingers and starts hopping around with her to the beat, hunched over and both of them giggling.
5.
“Oh Uncle Aaaaang!” Kya sings, striding out into the garden where Appa has just landed. She has Kallik on her hip, and Satoshi follows along at her heels, excited to see Appa and Momo again. His pockets are already full of lychee nuts for his fuzzy friends.
“Hey guys!” Uncle Aang calls, his gangly arms waving excitedly. “Are you the welcoming committee now?” He lands in front of them on a gentle breeze, setting down his bag and grinning broadly.
“Mom and Dad are in a meeting,” Kya informs him. “But somebody wanted to go for a little flight.” She hitches the toddler higher and winks conspiratorially. “If you catch my drift.” Uncle Aang’s eyes go wide, and he looks between the kids with unease. Satoshi feels terror grip his throat. He knew his big sister was crazy, but would she really…?
“Oh I dunno, your Dad was pretty...adamant...that you all are grounded until further notice.” Satoshi lets out a sigh of relief.
“Dad’s in a meeting,” Kya reiterates, as though being in a meeting involves entering another dimension. She should know better, her brother thinks to himself. Mom and Dad always find out when they’re up to no good, and as the sibling who’s usually leading the charge into trouble, Kya should definitely have that figured out by now. Uncle Aang should absolutely know that by now, but with horor, Satoshi realizes that the Avatar is looking a little bit convinced. “And we’re not gonna tell on you,” she wheedles. Speak for yourself, Satoshi thinks, glancing around to see if there are any guards within earshot if he calls for their parents. Sadly, it seems nobody has realized that the Avatar requires careful supervision.
“Well…” Uncle Aang considers, then comes to his decision, smiling once again. “Alright, I guess one can’t hurt. Who’s going?”
Kya moves to offer Kallik to him, her tiny hands reaching out and making grabby motions. Satoshi’s world goes into slow-motion. There’s a roaring in his ears, and as if from outside his body, he hears his own voice say,
“I am.” Kya and Uncle Aang blink at him, stunned. Their uncle is the first to recover, and asks,
“Are you sure, kiddo? I mean, you weren’t the biggest fan when you were a baby…”
“I want to try again,” he makes himself say, despite his sweating palms. Uncle Aang grins and ruffles his hair.
“That’s the spirit! You get that from your dad.”
As his uncle’s hands grab him under the armpits, Satoshi hears Kya mutter, “It’s the self-sacrificing idiot gene,” and then he is gone. As he soars through the air, he wonders if maybe his body hasn’t even left the ground yet. He can’t feel anything. Maybe he just died of panic and this is just his soul taking off for the spirit world.
Then he reaches the height of his arc and starts plummeting back to Earth, and the sensation of all his internal organs rattling around asserts the fact that he is very much still alive and experiencing this. He closes his eyes before he gets anywhere close to the ground, so it comes as a surprise when he comes to a sudden stop, cradled briefly by robes smelling of hay and bison fur, before being deposited back on his feet.
“How’s the weather up there?” Uncle Aang asks him, patting him on the back. Satoshi doesn’t know what the weather was like. He doesn’t know anything except that solid ground beneath his feet may have replaced his mother’s hugs as his favorite feeling in the world. He meets Kya’s eyes, and sees from her horrified expression that he must look like as much of a husk of a child as he feels.
A quiet, affectless “Thank you,” is all that he can manage to say, and then he is wandering back into the palace, where he shoves his head into the nearest antique vase and screams.
+1
“Psst.” A small sound behind him has Aang on alert. The Fire Nation Royal Palace hasn’t been a place of danger for years now, but with Toph and Sokka around, the probability of sneak attacks has risen a hundred fold. He doesn’t see anything though, and goes to turn back around, only to be caught by a surprisingly firm grip on his cape. About two feet below where he’d expected to find his assailant, Aang comes face to face with his youngest niece, Kallik. Her expression is the same determined furrow of the brow that Katara and Zuko have shared for so long it is impossible to tell which parent bestowed the trait on her. It has the eerie effect of summoning the terrifying force that is their combined will. Aang already knows that whatever she wants from him, he’s going to cave, and it will probably get him in trouble. “I hear you’re in the business of yeeting kids. I want in.”
Aang sighs. Zuko has been trying to prevent this day since the moment Aang met Kallik, and Kallik has been trying to evade her father’s overprotective tendencies since the moment of her existence. It is a battle Katara has elected not to fight, likely remembering her own impossible stubbornness and the futility of trying to stand against it. So it is with all of that knowledge that he says, “Okay.”
“Flameo!” Kallik cheers, punching at the air.
“Well ‘flameo’ was actually more of a greeting -”
“Let’s save the fun facts. I wanna fly.” With a creeping sense of dread, Aang follows the child pulling him along by the cape until they reach a courtyard. Kallik turns to face him, plants her feet, and rubs her palms together. “Alright,” she says, spreading her arms wide. “I’m ready.”
“Here we go...I guess,” Aang says, glancing over his shoulder as he reaches out to scoop her up by the armpits. The coast is clear, so he swings her around in circles a couple of times to get ready. As his niece starts to giggle, the garden blurs, and wind ruffles his robes, Aang feels the giddy anticipation of liftoff.
He hoists Kallik, up, up, up.
And then her momentum carries her out of his hands, and the wind that has built up around them propels her even higher. Her already small body shrinks until she looks more like the shadow of a bird in the night sky, clearing the palace roofs. A happy shriek pierces the air. Aang smiles, feeling her wonder as if it is his own. This is always the best part of someone’s first flight - witnessing them discover the wind anew - and while taking Air Acolytes to glide at the Northern Air Temple is fun, nothing compares to sharing this part of his culture with his nieces and nephews.
Kallik tumbles back into his arms, eyes wide with wonder, ecstatic grin plastered across her face. “Again!” she cries, the moment breath rushes back to her.
Aang laughs and holds her on his hip. As he always does, he asks, “How’s the weather up there?”
“The moon is huge! And I could see the whole city! And the ocean!” Kallik’s pudgy hands move in broad, sweeping gestures so similar to her mother’s bending as she speaks. He still remembers Katara’s delighted gasp the first time she flew, Toph’s bruising grip, Zuko’s shocked laugh. This moment, too, will be another piece of the Air Nomad legacy living on.
As Aang tosses Kallik yet again, Katara finds Zuko leaning against a pillar at the edge of the courtyard, watching. She approaches her husband, curious to find that he isn’t having a coronary at the sight of their daughter in freefall, and takes hold of his arm.
“You gonna yell at him?” she asks, feigning nonchalance. He doesn’t look away from them, but he is smiling, serene.
It was one of those moments where it didn’t matter that she was the one controlling him. Katara was completely at the mercy of the soft rasp of his voice and the heat radiating off of him, the feel of his blood overtaking her senses.
Chapters: 1/1, 12.7k words
Rated M for mature themes such as bloodbending and mild smut.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
go check out my new zutara one-shot, where zuko is lost in space and katara is the only person he has to talk to. based on mitski's song 'the baddy man' :D
