When I reached 1000 followers, I decided to write a story based on one of the prompts for the latest Zutara month. This story features aged up characters, where Zuko is never banished and serves in the navy under Admiral Zhao. Katara and Sokka never find Aang and travel to the North Pole on their own. As requested, this is for Day 9: Shatter. Please enjoy! It will be up on AO3 soon!
@zutaramonth
The Healing Hut
He says a lot of things as the fever works through him. He curses every time he moves, when he feels the pain surge through his body. He thinks he talks to Mai. He calls for his mother at one point. He imagines his father, but never lets a plea for him leave his lips.
Through all the murmurs of a fevered man, the first thing he says consciously when he realizes he is not alone is: “My uncle?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know your uncle.” Then two cool hands massage his temples, and he falls back to sleep.
He hears a lot too. “I can’t leave. They’ll kill him.”
A man says, “The guards will make sure no one does.”
“The guards want to kill him.”
“They can’t. He’s worth more alive.”
“Not anymore,” the woman’s voice replies, the one the cool hands belong to. “He asked for an uncle.”
“That would be General Iroh.”
He wants to speak up, say “yes, did you find him”, but the air around him is so hot, and he feels like he can’t breathe.
“Ozai’s brother,” the man adds.
Ozai.
The air feels hotter and hotter. He moans in pain. The hands find him.
“That’s Ozai’s son you’re helping, Katara. And the whole tribe knows it.”
“And they know this is the man who killed Zhao.”
“Yeah, too late,” the man sneers abhorrently.
“He’s part of the reason I have my bending back.”
“Yue’s the reason you have your bending back!” he shouts.
“Look, I couldn’t just let him die out there. Especially not by Zhao’s hand.”
“So you’ll save his life, nurse him back to health, and then what?”
The woman, Katara, gives no answer. She prods at his neck, his shoulders, his chest. He wants to shout at her to stop touching him; it all hurts so much. But then she pulls her hands away, and he realizes he does not hurt as much as he did before.
“Good, your fever’s going down. Now how are those ribs?” Her hands trail down from his forehead to the center of his body. “Hmm, not as good as I want them to be. This might hurt a little.”
His chest seizes in pain immediately as she attempts to mend the shattered bones. He wishes he could stop her. He wishes he could burn her hands from his body. He wishes she would let him die.
“There. That’s better,” she says softly, and opens his mouth to bend water down his throat.
His fever breaks that night.
She’s not expecting to see his hazy eyes staring back at her when she enters the healing hut. It’s easier to heal Prince Zuko when his eyes are closed and he’s lying still. Now that he’s awake, now that his fever’s broken, now that his bones are on the mend, she wonders what to do with him.
“You,” he says in a deep, raspy voice, deeper from his illness. “You were at the oasis.”
“Yes.” She stood with Sokka and Yue, trying to protect the moon spirit from Zhao and his men.
“Katara.”
She wonders why he feels the need to call her by name. She’s surprised he even knows it.
“I should be dead.”
“You should.”
“The force of Zhao’s attack-”
“I was able to heal most of the burned skin with minimal scarring. The force of the blow shattered your ribs. I had to work quickly to stop the internal bleeding. You’ll have to stay in bed longer, though. You still have a lot of healing left.”
“My uncle?” he asks again.
“I don’t know.”
As far as she knows, every Fire Nation soldier drowned in La’s revenge...every single one except Zuko. Sokka tells her La spared him because he would have died from his injuries. Katara thinks La spared him out of gratitude, for delivering the fatal blow to the one who harmed Tui.
“Who would know?”
“I’ll ask around. Let me check on your ribs.”
Her hands are less steady now that golden eyes watch her every move.
As soon as he can sit, he starts making demands - for a ship, for parchment, for an audience with the Chief.
“Eat the food I brought you,” she says, rolling her eyes. She’s starting to prefer him unconscious. “The broth is delicious.”
“I need to let my father know I survived.”
“He knows,” she tells him. Chief Arnook sent word to the Fire Nation, hoping to settle on a ransom. “He knows you killed Admiral Zhao. You’ve been labeled a traitor to the Fire Nation.”
He hurls the bowl of soup at her. She bends it right back at him.
Sokka urges her not to heal him again, and she’s inclined to agree. She holds out for three days before she wonders how his ribs are faring.
He’s the only patient in this healing hut. He thinks he knows why. He’s a traitor to the land he’s from and a prisoner to the land he’s in.
“What will your people do with me?” he asks, while she soothes the bruises beneath his scarred skin, evidence that his bones are moving back where they belong.
“They’re not my people,” she reveals.
There’s nothing more absurd to him, that this young woman with hands cloaked in healing water, would not consider these people of the Northern Water Tribe hers.
“I’m from the South. I came here with my brother a few years ago to learn waterbending.”
“I didn’t realize the South had any waterbenders left.”
Her hands still.
“That’s thanks to your people.”
He doesn’t see her again for five days. His ribs ache.
“He’s a liability,” Chief Arnook says.
“Yeah, especially now that you told the Fire Lord we have him,” mentions Sokka critically. The relationship between the two of them suffers irreparably now that Yue can no longer keep the peace between her father and her husband.
Katara wonders if this means Sokka will consider leaving the North Pole now. Maybe she can convince him to come home, the way she had to convince him to leave all those years ago. But Sokka will never leave, not when he’s Arnook’s heir by marriage, not when he has a son he has to raise alone.
This may be her time to leave, however. “I can take him back to the South Pole,” she offers. “That way the threat’s away from here. The Fire Nation won’t attack the South Pole. There’s no need when they’ve already taken everything. The North, on the other hand, has too much to lose.”
“Katara-“ her brother begins. He doesn’t want them to be separated. He still stands by some promise he made to their dad that he would always look after her. But she’s grown up now. She’s a master waterbender. And it’s time to go home and wait for new waterbenders to be born. It’s time for her to teach them.
“My mind’s made up,” she says.
Prince Zuko will return to the South Pole with her, as a prisoner of the Southern Water Tribe.
He’ll trade one icy pole for another, it seems. When he hears the news, he wishes she had let him die.
“When do we leave?”
“As soon as I think you’re able,” she replies. “It will be a long journey. You’ll need your strength. How do you feel today?”
His body feels better, but nothing else. His mind is raging at the thought of spending the rest of his life in that plundered village of ice and snow. He’s seen it before, briefly when he was under Zhao’s command, as they searched for the Avatar. He never wants to see it again.
She helps support his weight when he begins walking again. His arm hangs around her shoulders, and though he’s working hard to keep the indignance plastered on his face, she can tell by the stride of his steps that he is eager to walk again.
They take laps around the hut until his breaths grow heavy, and then she helps him back into his bed. He eats his soup without protest.
A question persists on the tip of her tongue. It’s bothered her for weeks, and now she feels like he’s in a stable enough mood to answer it. “Why did you kill him?”
Zuko had attacked first, as soon as Zhao struck Tui, not the other way around. Zhao’s final blow, while intended fatally, had been in response to Zuko’s wave of fire. Even on the ground, with shattered bones and melted skin, Zuko rained fire down on Zhao until the admiral’s death.
She would have done it, had her bending not been taken from her. Sokka would have, if he could have gotten close enough without being burned. Zhao expected this from them, the enemy. He clearly didn’t expect it from Zuko. So she wants to know why he did it.
Why did it matter so much to you?
“The sky’s not supposed to be red,” he replies, reminding her of how it felt to have the moon plucked from the sky, how it felt to be without her bending. “He could have destroyed the whole world. Mortals have no business with the spirits. We can’t understand them.”
“Yeah, but La would have handled him, like he handled the rest. You didn’t have to.”
“I didn’t know what La was going to do. I just knew what I had to do.”
“What did you think the mission was here?”
“I was told that we were here in case the Northern Water Tribe was harboring the Avatar. I didn’t know Zhao had other plans until we got to the oasis. No one knew. All those soldiers died fighting blindly.”
“They’re all fighting blindly if they think this war is justified,” she returns.
He’s standing in the healing hut when she comes to check on him. He knows not to leave; there are four guards right outside in case the idea ever strikes him. His back is straight, and if he’s in pain, he hides it well.
Wordlessly, she sheathes her palms in water and presses them to his chest, searching for lingering damage to the bones. There’s barely any left.
“I hope you don’t get seasick.”
“I don’t.”
“We leave in a week,” she decides. A week is enough time to work out the details with Sokka, like where to avoid Fire Nation fleets and how much money she’ll be allowed to take with her, and which vessel she’ll be given. Sokka wants her to take a couple guards too, but she’s hesitant to add more stakes to the clandestine transport of the Fire Lord’s son.
He smirks. “You shouldn’t have healed me before we left.”
She’s seen what his hands can do. She won’t let that intimidate her. “You shouldn’t try anything. Not when I know exactly where you’re vulnerable.” Her hands can shatter as well as they can mend. He’ll learn that if he wants to survive the journey.
He could melt the shackles, but he doesn’t desire to have molten metal coating his wrists. This will be his last morning in the healing hut, and his first morning outside in weeks. Two guards grab him by each arm and force him forward, not that they need to. He has no qualms walking out on his own. He wants to leave this land as much as they want him to.
For a quick second, he pauses right outside the entrance of the hut, as soon as he feels the sun on his face.
He looks up to the sky. It isn’t red. It’s blue. He’s a traitor and a prisoner. But the sky is blue.
The little girl squealed. “I am never listening to her again!”
“No, wait, wrong lesson! Come back-”
*
“Sifu Aang, how did you get so old?”
The old man sighed and leaned on his staff, tilting his head. His long hair jingled with the Water Tribe charms tied into his braids, the headband he always wore keeping them out of his eyes. He squinted out at the snows that rolled over the horizon as far as they could see. He looked down at the bright seven year old who had come out to walk with him. “They say, Katara, that benders and others close to the spirits, that as they keep up that connection, nurture their chi, they can live centuries. Avatar Kyoshi lived several centuries.”
“So if I get good enough at waterbending, I’ll never going to die?”
He chucked, ruffling her hair. “I never said that, little one.”
*
“Sifu Aang, how- how- how…”
“Hush, dear, hush.” He cradled the breaking eight year old in his arms. “Let us be sad together. Let us grieve together.”
“But how-” she broke off into more sobs.
“Oh child.” He looked up as Hakoda entered the shaman’s tent, new lines of grief etched into his young face. Aang extended a hand, and, when the chief took the bait, he pulled him down into a group hug, making a Katara sandwich.
“One day at a time, and lots of hugs.” He felt the younger man’s shoulders shake. “Just like this.”
*
“Sifu Aang, you’re being stupid.”
The old man just chuckled and leaned on his staff, squinting out into the snows on their walk. “Sokka tells me you almost capsized your boat this morning.”
The teen crossed her arms. “He deserved that tongue-lashing for ignoring that I caught a fish before he did. It’s what Gran-Gran would have said.”
“The difference between you and Kanna is that one of you is actually a tribe elder.”
“I don’t see how some ultimately harmless splashing means I now have to go out on a walk with you. Losing all my time to do housework seems a little harsh.”
“Katara, have you ever felt like something is missing?”
“What?”
“Have you ever felt like there is more you’re meant for?”
She huffed. “Yeah, like I think my destiny is to pull fish hooks out of Sokka’s thumbs and do all the mending he’s too impatient to finish.”
Aang fished inside his coat and withdrew an old wooden box. It was easily held in his hand, worn around the edges where the yellow paint had worn off. There was a funny looking lock on the face of it, symbols she did not recognized carved both into the lock and the box itself, creating crevices for the yellow paint to survive the years.
“One hundred years ago, Fire Lord Sozin made the mistake most evil people do, that to do good one must be righteous. But if the average person can look at evil planned and say ‘no, not this,’ they can do good even if they do not make a grand public gesture.” He offered her the box.
“It’s locked; I can’t open it.”
“It’s an airlock. An airbender can open it.”
She raised an eyebrow, looking so much like her grandmother about to tear into a foolish tribesman. “You know, I liked you better when you were everyone’s crazy adopted uncle who could toss us the highest into the snow banks.”
Aang exhaled, slow and heavy, the stream of his breath clear as it wound straight for the lock and twisted through it, popping the lid. “And that is how I managed to toss you so high.”
“You’re an airbender!”
“Open the box, Katara.”
She did so, and her brow furrowed as she stared at the few trinkets inside. A green top lying on its side, a red cloth doll, and a yellow knotted string with multicolored beads looped along its length sat in the box like a strange memento box. “How did you get my stuff,” she asked softly, confused by her words as much as by the box’s contents as she reached for the beaded string.
“This box has been locked for a hundred years, Katara,” Aang replied as her fingers closed around the first bead.
Light exploded across her vision, and it felt like she was flying through the air. She landed on her back and immediately rolled back to her feet. To her confusion, it looked like she was in what Aang had described swamps as looking like when he told stories. Everything had a faint glow, including the bald kid sitting cross-legged in front of her and smiling up at her.
“Hello Katara!”
“Am I dead?”
“Nope! Just woefully untrained. But that’s okay, because you’ve only just learned you’re the Avatar like I was.”
Katara raised an eyebrow. “You’re just a kid.”
“So are you. Don’t tell Aang though, there’s no question that will answer that he’s ready for.”
“He’s a hundred and twelve. I sure hope he can handle a message from the spirits.”
The boy stood, yellow robes floating around him a nice contrast to his blue arrow tattoos. “Just trust me. Now, you’ll get better at this as you practice, but I’ll help you back to your body this time.”
“I left my body?” “You’re the bridge between the human world and the spirit world, Katara. This is part of the job.” He smiled and tapped her forehead.
She blinked and she was surrounded by snow again, lying on her back. Aang was climbing back to his feet, the box lay open between them. “Well,” he began, extending a hand to help her up. “I did not expect such a light show.”
*
“I saw the lights! Just hand over the Avatar and I will leave! No one has to get hurt.”
Aang met Iroh’s eyes over the head of the blustering teenager. This was the nephew he spoke so highly of? He did not look like much, or like anything but a devoted son of Ozai’s, despite the scar. Ah well. His hand was forced by Sokka’s loud mouth. The next mail ship would undoubtedly carry away with it a report from Ozai’s spy – the identity of whom still escaped his probings, something that would forever prickle at him – given that the boy had tried to get Katara reprimanded for waterbending.
He was pretty sure how the youths would respond to this.
“Alright, alright, enough is enough.” Aang stepped forward, inwardly smiling at the surprise on the Fire Nation Prince’s face. “I am the Avatar. Take me away.”
Gold eyes narrowed. “How do I know you’re not just lying to save your people?”
With a sweep of Aang’s hand, air flung snow into Zuko’s face. “I’ll go with you, if you swear any of my clever attempts to escape will not result in retribution on the tribe.”
As the teen clawed at the snow in his collar, Aang winked at Katara. She nodded, ducking her head to hide a smirk.
“Deal. Bring him aboard.”
*
Zuko took a fortifying breath outside the room his men had stashed the Avarar in. He was about to go face an old man, yes, but one who’d had a hundred years to master all four elements. This was what he’d been training for, what his father expected him to face. He could do this; he was not the failure Court and his sister thought him.
He threw the door open, hoping to intimidate.
It didn’t ruffle the old man at all. He was sitting chin in hand as Uncle Iroh placed a tile on the Pai Sho board between them.
“Uncle!”
“Ah, Prince Zuko. Do come in. I could use your eyes; the Avatar is beating me soundly.”
The Avatar shook a finger in friendly chastisement at Uncle. “Hey now! No cheating. That’s not very honorable.”
“Excuse me! You are a prisoner! Uncle, stop playing with him.”
Uncle placed a tile. A stupid move, actually, unless there was a pattern Zuko wasn’t seeing. Uncle probably had some gambit in play Zuko couldn’t actually help with that would slam shut around the Avatar’s tiles sooner or later. Why lay out the spirit tile to follow the world tile?
The older man chuckled. “She was cute; wasn’t she? The young lady protecting the tribe’s little kids?” He snuck a teasing glance at Zuko as Uncle’s eyebrows raised in consideration.
He thought of fierce blue eyes glaring out of her well-formed face. “I didn’t notice.”
“Didn’t notice? Iroh, I am beginning to suspect both your Pai Sho skills and your parenting skills. What young man doesn’t notice a pretty girl?”
“I was trying to catch you!”
“Well I am much too old for you. And I’m not sure I’d be interested in someone who’s so focused on his goal he forgets about situational awareness.”
“I am situationally aware!” Zuko yelled, right as the shipped lurched and suddenly stopped.
The Avatar smiled. “Well, that’s my ride.”
*
Zuko breathed heavily with effort, his ship tilting from the ice the waterbender - oh, father was going to have words with their spy - had produced to stop their movement. The Avatar was laughing over head, his walking stick turned into a glider, wheeling in a wide circle to follow after the small boat piloted by the young tribesman who’d challeneged him.
Leaning over the rail, Zuko met the eyes of the waterbender - the one who’d protected the little kids - as he looked back. She was staring back, perhaps to track the Avatar.
Her eyes were fierce, and with the wind blowing her hair he could see what the Avatar-
She flipped him off with both hands, and the boat vanished around an iceburg.
a contribution for @zutaramonth, quarantine edition, day 15: trust. view my other work for zutara month (quarantine edition) here.
this isn’t sad this time, i promise!
modern au. cw: cursing. long fic ahead.
“See those other morons over there?” Toph says; she lowers her voice down to a pseudo-whisper. “They’re stupid as fuck.”
Akira coos in response. Toph continues her rocking back and forth, tickling her belly as she says, “Yeah, that’s right. I’m gonna be the dopest auntie you’ll ever have. You know that bitch, Martha Stewart? She won’t even know what’s coming for her.”
“Two strikes, Toph,” Katara says with her arms crossed. “I gave birth three days ago and now my baby’s gonna say fu– the f word before she says ‘mama’ or ‘papa’.”
“No, Katara,” Toph says, still cradling the now-sleeping Akira in her arms. “She’s gonna say y’all are fucking wussies when she realizes how lame her parents are.”
Katara rolls her eyes, too tired to argue with the blind girl. Toph deposits the sleeping child in Katara’s outstretched arms; as Toph unfurls her arms from the infant, she says, “I’m tellin’ you, Sugar Queen. I’m out here being Solange Knowles while you guys fight over which Kardashian you are.”
Zuko walks in with a two mugs of coffee in hand. “I think Kourtney’s pretty cool.”
Without looking back, Toph points in his direction. “Exactly.”
Katara smirks. “If you’re Solange, that means Akira’s Blue – making me Beyonce.”
Toph pulls a face. “Your husband just walked in claiming Kourtney Kardashian, so that makes you Travis Scott–”
“Scott Disick,” Zuko corrects her, handing Katara a mug.
“–And he’s pretty problematic.”
“We’re all kinda problematic Toph,” Katara says, her voice muffled as her lips rest on the rim of the coffee cup.
"Right,” Toph says, reaching for her wallet. “Anyway, gotta go. A precinct proposed another turnover to Major Crimes and I gotta go over it.” Toph gave both her friends side hugs before making her way to the door. Katara sees Zuko wince from the force of her grip and Akira smiles at the warmth.
“Thanks for breakfast, guys!” she says over her shoulder, closing the door behind her. Katara and Zuko stare at the door for a few moments.
“You want Toph to be Akira’s godmother,” Zuko says, raising his brow at her. “Do you really trust that she won’t drop our kid head-first?”
“Shut up, Jay-Z. Beyonce didn’t make a whole diss album for you to tell me what to do.”
Akira cooed, seemingly in agreement with her mother.
—
“Oh my spirits, Zuko, Akira’s lustration rites is three months away and we haven’t decided on her godparents,” Katara says, frantically pacing around their room. Zuko mumbles in response as he hunches over the latest bill on economic reform.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Zuko shoots his head up. “Kat, calm down – three months is more than enough time to choose her godparents.”
“No, it’s not, Zuko!” Katara says, pulling at her hair. “We still have to figure out the arrangements, the celebration afterwards–”
“The Fire Sages have that sorted for us, Kat. They’ve conducted thousands of baptisms of fire before,” Zuko says pointedly, returning to his work. He keeps his head down as he mumbles, “For all I know, they’re immortal and feed off of dying royals.”
“What? I didn’t catch that,” Katara says with her arms crossed. Zuko sighs and rubs his eyes, saying, “Nothing.”
Katara rolls her eyes. He continues, saying, “You know, the best set of godparents for Akira would be the ones we trust her life with.”
Katara huffs and keeps her arms crossed. “Well, I already have a list. Could you at least help me with that? I need to add more people.”
That wakes Zuko up. “How many godparents do you want our kid to have?”
Katara pulls out a sheet of paper from her own desk and slaps it onto Zuko’s. Zuko’s eyes widen.
“Akira‘s gonna have twenty godparents?” Zuko asks incredulously. “And you want me to add more?”
“You’ll never know, Zuko,” she says, biting her lip as she resumes pacing around their room. “We need more people to protect her.”
Zuko lets out a laugh. “We’re friends with the world’s largest leaders, Katara,” he says with mirth. “Three of them would be twenty to anyone else.”
Katara juts out her lip in thought as Zuko’s words sink into her; he gets up from his desk and gathers her into his arms. “Besides,” he says. “There won’t be enough people for the next baby.”
Katara untangles herself and places her hands on her hips. “Yes, there will.”
“No, there won’t, Kat. You’ve already listed my friends,” he says, grabbing her list and pointing to top. “All six of them.”
—
A few days later, Sokka bursts through Zuko’s office in song.
“Am I original?”
Sokka is met with silence.
“Am I the only one?”
The silence continues.
Sokka gives Zuko an exasperated look. “You’re supposed to sing yeeeeaaaaah after each question, Zuko.”
“I know.”
With that, Sokka starts laughing and Zuko breaks out into a smile. When Sokka comes up to Zuko’s desk, they bump fists and shake hands; Zuko leads Sokka to the chair in front of his desk. “So,” he says, settling back into his own chair. “What brings you back here? The lustration rites are still three months away.”
“I thought I’d stop by before I head over to Republic City for the Union’s Economic Council,” Sokka says, inspecting his boomerang. “You’re coming, right? Aang’s gonna be there.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Zuko admits. “I was going to send over my minister for economics. With the reform bill we’ve been reviewing, though, I feel a hell lot more inclined to go.”
Sokka hums and looks at Zuko when he says, “How bad?”
“They won’t let go of the dead war factories and they aren’t getting any cheaper.”
Sokka winces. “Yikes. Be careful, though, the Council might kill you if you raise that.” Zuko nods somberly with the thought.
“I won’t actually be there for the Council, Sokka,” he says, folding his arms over the table. “I’ll just show up because I have to. I’m actually going to Republic City because I need to have a talk with Kuei; they wouldn’t let go of the war factories because of foreign investors from his country.” Sokka nods his head in understanding.
An attendant knocks softly on the door. “Come in,” Zuko says.
“Dinner is ready, Sir,” she says. “Lady Katara and Lady Akira are already in the hall.”
“Is there an extra setting for Chief Sokka?” Zuko asks. The attendant blanches and wrings her arms behind her back. “N-no, Sir, I’m afraid we haven’t prepared for the Chief’s arrival.”
Zuko softens; Mira, the attendant, is new and was handpicked personally by Katara. “It’s fine, Mira. The Chief didn’t make his arrival known,” he says, throwing an accusing look at Sokka. Sokka shrugs. “Please tell Tako and the rest to prepare an extra setting and a room for the Chief. He will be spending the next couple of days here.”
Sokka starts. “Wait–”
Zuko holds up a hand. “That will be all, Mira. Thank you.”
Mira bows and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.
“I already booked a hotel, Zuko,” Sokka says, leaning back on his chair as he feigns disappointment.
“Ask for a refund, then,” Zuko says, getting up from his desk. “I know your cheap ass is glad you don’t have to pay for accommodations.”
Sokka gets up from the chair. “You are the best brother-in-law.”
Zuko smiles. “And you,” he says as claps his best friend on the shoulder, “Are going to be Akira’s godfather.”
Sokka’s jaw drops and Zuko backtracks.
“I-if you wanna be, of course.”
Sokka throws his arms around Zuko in response.
—
Much later, Sokka runs into the common room carrying a wailing Akira in his arms. “I swear I didn’t do anything,” he says. “I promise it isn’t my fault that she hit her head with a boomerang.”
Katara and Zuko shoot up from the couch. “She what?!”
“She was playing with Boomerang! I was showing it off, but then she reached out for it and bonked her head in the process,” Sokka says defensively. Katara picks up Akira from her brother, inspecting her for any injuries.
“In what world is it okay to play with a boomerang with a three month-old baby?” Katara asks, trying to soothe the crying baby.
“My world, Katara! Matok and Kira love Boomerang!” Sokka exclaims, throwing his hands up for emphasis.
“Sokka, she won’t even remember the names of her cousins because you shrunk her walnut brain,” Katara says, giving Sokka an accusing look. Sokka barks out a laugh.
“Kat, you’re being too generous. She’s related to me, remember? Her brain’s probably pea-sized, tops.”
Katara hurls a pillow at him.
Akira coos and smiles against her mother’s shoulder.
—
Aang visits the Fire Nation one month before the lustration rites.
“What’s up, little buddy?” he says, picking up Akira from her crib. Akira starts to giggle when she sees her uncle, and Katara smiles fondly at the sight.
“Are you here for another meeting with Zuko?” Katara asks, carrying a tray of durian tarts as she makes her way to Aang.
“Kinda?” Aang says, lilting his voice up. “I’m actually here to talk to his minister of economics, about the dead war factories.”
“Namato? Poor guy,” Katara says. “He’s smack in the middle of Zuko and Kuei’s hot shots.”
“I know,” Aang says, lightly pinching Akira’s nose. “Kuei’s not the bad guy though.”
“We know,” Katara responds, setting two durian tarts on a dessert plate. “That’s another poor guy.”
Aang hums in agreement; he starts reaching for a tart just as Zuko walks in. Aang takes a bite off the tart and pretends to offer some to Akira.
“What’s up, buddy?” Aang says, greeting Zuko with a bright smile.
“Could be better,” Zuko responds, sulking as he sheds his suit jacket. Sensing an incoming change in mood, Katara quickly attempts to brighten it by asking, “Aang, you’re gonna make it to Akira’s lustration rites, right?”
Aang brightens even more, seemingly oblivious to Zuko’s damp mood. “Of course, Katara! How could I miss the baptism of the first mixed-blood princess of the Fire Nation?” Aang lightly tickles Akira as he lilts his voice with every word. Zuko softens at the sight.
“Well, that, and the baptism of your first godchild,” Zuko says as he settles beside his wife. Aang almost drops the kid in surprise.
“Crap, Aang, watch it!” Zuko cries as Katara kicks his shin. “Ow! What was that for?”
Katara looks at him pointedly. “There‘s a baby in front of us.”
“Yeah, and our friend almost dropped her!”
“Aang would never drop the baby, Zuko. He can’t even drop a spider.”
The sound of sniffling cuts their conversation short; when Katara and Zuko turn around, they find Aang at the brink of tears.
“Y-you,” Aang starts, his voice shaking. “You want me to be Akira’s godpoppy?”
Katara and Zuko give him a look. “Godpoppy?”
—
Three weeks later, Aang is whizzing through the halls of the Royal Palace on an airball; as soon as he accepted his role as Akira’s godpoppy, he declared himself as the lead organizer of the celebration. “Mira, don’t forget to contact the caterer!” he says to the pair of attendants. “Tako, the decorators will be here in six days. You hear me, buddy? Six days. We need the plaza cleaned up before that, okay?”
“Yes, Sir,” Mira and Tako respond just as Aang whizzes past them. They bow respectfully to Katara and Zuko as they come up the hallway.
“What kind of sound system is this?” Aang exclaims, the echo of his disbelief reverberating through the walls.
Katara and Zuko laugh at their friend’s torrential barking, watching as Zuko’s staff scramble about trying their best to keep up with Aang’s incessant demanding. Akira laughs with them and Zuko brushes his nose onto his daughter’s. “He can hire Beyonce if he wants to, you know,” he tells his wife as Akira plays with his hair.
“What do you mean? I’m right here,” Katara says, the ghost of a smile on her face as she points a slim finger to it. Zuko laughs and kisses the top of her head.
—
The day of the lustration rites come, and Akira is placed in the center of a ring of candles. The ceremony is private, with only her immediate family, godparents, and the Fire Sages in attendance.
The Head Sage says the invocation in ancient Fire Nation tongue, and the ceremony concludes with Zuko bending the candlelit flames; they briefly shoot up in streams of fire before Katara bends water around each stream, evaporating them into the air.
“Congratulations, my lord, my lady,” the Head Sage says, leading a bow. Katara and Zuko bow in response. As the Fire Sages head to the balcony doors to reveal the child to the public, the royal family’s friends and family begin to swarm them. Sokka starts taking photos with his phone.
“Calm down, guys,” Katara says, holding Akira protectively as Aang and Toph wrestle over her. “The people are waiting.”
When the doors open, Katara and Zuko are greeted by a miles-long crowd of Fire Nation citizens. The couple smile amidst the raucous cheer, gracefully waving at the crowd; cameras and reporters are dotted around strategic points of the plaza.
“I present to you all,” the Head Sage bellows from the parapet. “Fire Lord Zuko, Fire Lady and Master Katara, and Princess Akira!” The raucous cheer magnified, causing Akira to stir uncomfortably. Katara and Zuko wave for a few more moments before being ushered back inside to the hall.
“Hey Kourtney,” Toph calls. Zuko turns around just as Aang and Sokka begin arguing who gets to carry Akira first. “If anyone dare touch little Blue Ivy,” Toph says, pointing her thumb towards the now-sleeping infant. “I will beat them up.”
Zuko smiles. “Okay, Rocky,” he says as he accepts Akira from his wife, who has since moved on to accommodating their guests.
Zuko was from the North pole, trained under Master Pakku. He meets Katara when the gang first travel there. Skeptical that a girl could waterbend so well, he challenges her to duel, and he’s impressed (in more ways than just one~)
A little late, but I made it. Toph reflects on a tragedy. Trigger warning: miscarriage
@zutaramonth
Toph had been the first to know. Before Katara had a reason to cry herself to sleep, and Zuko had a reason to cancel his meetings, Toph had known, and for the first time since the badgermoles showed her how to see the world, she felt cursed.
Usually, she loved knowing. She loved feeling the heartbeats of everyone around her, how they fluctuated from nervousness to excitement to exhaustion, how she could detect when someone wasn’t telling the truth.
In the same way that she had been the first to know the tragedy, she had also been the first to know the joy. She had felt the tiny flutter of a heartbeat syncing with Katara’s own rhythm and listened to the way their little baby (already she imagined Zuko and Katara with a little girl) lived inside her.
They were going to be parents, and they didn’t even know it yet.
When they did know it, the whole palace was celebrating with them. The nation had been waiting long enough for an heir. People speculated if the child would bend fire or water; some said the child might not bend at all. They listed names for the royal couple; ministers proposed arranged marriages between their children and the unborn prince or princess, which Katara had been all too happy to refuse.
Katara’s heartbeat had been perfectly happy since she discovered the news. Zuko’s had been excited and nervous, and their heartbeats still increased disgustingly when they caught sight of the other. Did they have to be so sickeningly in love all the time?
Then one day, Toph had been having tea with Suki and Katara in the gardens. Katara stood up to look at the flowers blooming, too quickly, if the racing of her heart and her baby’s heart was anything to go by, and fallen to the ground.
“Katara!” Suki called, checking her porcelain cup for any traces of poison. “Katara! Guards!”
They’d all been at her side in an instant, trying to wake her from unconsciousness. Toph, however, stood still through all the commotion. She could tell Katara was fine. The baby inside her, on the other hand, was not.
Katara woke, bleeding and clutching at her stomach, cloaking her hands in the blue waters of the pond in an impossible attempt to save her baby.
Toph didn’t see Katara again for days, and she didn’t see Zuko either, but she sensed them. She sensed them in their rooms, holding each other tightly, leaning on each other through it all.
Toph cursed the spirits. Couldn’t they let her friends have their happy ending? They’d fought tirelessly for world peace. They’d given their childhoods to the masses. Now here they were, still fighting. Zuko constantly warded off assassination attempts. Katara dealt with a resentful nation. Suki, as the head of the Kyoshi Warriors, lived hundreds of miles from Sokka, who worked day and night to rebuild the Southern Water Tribe. Aang scoured the world for airbenders he could never find, and Toph would have been content if her friends could just be happy.
Months later, when Katara had healed enough to have tea with them once again, and Zuko had returned to the fury and frustration of his cabinet meetings, Toph felt the flutter again.
It was faint at first. She thought she might have imagined it, but then it kept beating steadily. She asked the spirits not to take this one. This one was going to stay with them. Her friends’ happiness was not too much to ask for.
With her connecting flight canceled, Katara heads over to a nearby hotel and tries to make the best of her situation. It doesn’t hurt that the hotel owner’s son is there too.
@zutaramonth
This was so not how Katara had planned to spend her holidays. Back in the South, her house was filled with her family members. Right about now, her dad would be lighting a fire, her mom would be cooking a delicious sea prune stew, and Gran Gran would be badgering Sokka about setting the table. It had been the family get-together she’d been looking forward to all year long.
But of course, she had gotten stuck in a blizzard, and flights out were canceled for the next two days. That hadn’t left her much of a choice other than taking a cab over to the nearest hotel and begging for a room.
“You mean you don’t have any availability?”
The concierge at the counter looked over her computer in sympathy. “Well, we do have the penthouse suite, but that’s usually reserved for-”
“Cut her a break, Toph. It’s the holidays. The chances of him actually showing up are slim to none.”
Toph shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, but if he does show up, you’re the one who has to tell him we put someone in the penthouse.”
The other concierge, a boy who looked fresh out of high school named Aang, accepted this fate and called a bellhop over to help Katara with her bags.
She had to admit the room was absolutely gorgeous, like take your breath away gorgeous. The tables and counters were all made from marble, and accents across the suite were the loveliest shade of gold. From what she could tell, there were four bedrooms, fit for an entire family, and when she stepped into the master bathroom and saw the most inviting Jacuzzi tub ever, she thought maybe this wasn’t such an awful turn of events after all.
Her bags were stacked in the corner of the sitting room when she hurled herself on top of the red silk sheets on the master bed. She had never laid on such a comfortable bed before. She could take a nap right there, after the stressful day she had, waiting and waiting for a flight that kept getting pushed back until it was finally canceled altogether.
Outside, she could see the snow surrounding the city, but inside, she was toasty as could be. She got up to put the kettle on for a relaxing cup of tea and threw on some flannel pajamas. A nap didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.
xx
“Hey, Toph. Hey, Aang.”
Usually his friends at the hotel smiled at him when he visited, but today their eyes widened and their bodies stilled.
“What? Is there something on my face?”
Toph nudged Aang forcefully. He cleared his throat and said, “Zuko, we weren’t expecting you. We thought you’d be at the Ember Island Resort with your family for the holidays.”
Zuko folded his sunglasses into the breast pocket of his collared shirt. “That was the plan, but even the family jet wouldn’t take me any further in this weather. It was lucky we were able to land here. Can you get Jet to bring my bags up to my room?”
“Um, Zuko, about your room...” Toph began.
“What about it?” he looked between the two of them suspiciously. “Did one of the maids ruin the floors again?”
“No, that’s not it,” said Aang. “Just go on up. You’re in for a little surprise.”
“I hate surprises,” he muttered to himself, but he was so tired from the jet that he didn’t have the patience to entertain Aang’s silly notions any further. He did notice Toph smirking out of the corner of his eye, which made him uneasy for a second before he entered the familiar elevator. He and Azula used to visit every floor when they were kids, looking for something to do.
He kept his key to the penthouse on him at all times. In one lazy motion, he plucked the card from his wallet, swiped it, and unlocked the door. Immediately, however, he noticed something was off in his favorite home. A few things, actually. For one, there was luggage right beside his door that definitely did not belong to him. The kettle was on the stove, an abandoned mug on the counter. Most notably, upon further inspection, there was a whole entire woman sleeping in the master bedroom.
“How did you get in here?” he shouted, effectively startling her out of a peaceful slumber.
It took a second for her eyes to adjust, but when they did, she jumped up from the bed. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my room?” she screamed.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my room?”
“Your room?” she exclaimed. “I reserved it first, fair and square.”
“This room can’t be reserved. It’s my personal home when I’m in the area.”
“What do you, like, own the hotel or something?”
“No, but my father does.”
The girl’s manner towards him changed immediately. “Look, I’m sorry. They didn’t tell me any of that downstairs. They said I could stay here. I’m waiting for the snow to clear, so I can go home to my family for the holidays.”
Some of his anger subsided. He was still going to strangle Toph and Aang later. He knew they were the ones behind this mess. “Me too.”
“I’m pretty sure this is the only room available in the area too. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Every flight out is canceled for the next two days.”
She sounded so desperate, and he felt kind of sorry for yelling at her the way he did. “Hey, um, it’s a pretty big suite. You can stay here in one of the spare bedrooms until you get something worked out.”
Her whole face broke out into an adorably wide grin, and the sadness in her eyes began to fade. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you so much! I’ll be a really good suitemate, I promise. You won’t regret this. Do you want any tea? I know I put the kettle on before I went to bed. It may still be warm.”
She was pretty, he realized. She was pretty, bubbly, and looked adorable in her blue flannel pajamas. They brought out the lovely blue of her eyes. He was in so much trouble.
AU: Before the Avatar is discovered in the South Pole, Katara goes on her own to look for him. She finds the Fire Nation’s banished prince along the way.
@zutaramonth
There are bones at the bottom of that river. It’s how it got its name in the first place; Fire Nation names aren’t too creative. The River of Bones divides the outermost island of the Fire Nation archipelago, flowing from one end of the sea to the other.
The bones at the bottom belong to waterbenders- one hundred years’ worth of waterbenders. Now they’re all gone, not a single one left to drown, so the war camps along the river sit abandoned, and the water flows undisturbed.
It is the perfect place for a banished prince. He crouches down to the river and cups his hands to collect enough to wash his face. It’s still a shock to feel the leathery skin on the left side. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to it.
“Hold it right there,” shouts a voice downstream.
Zuko panics. This is Fire Nation territory. He’s not allowed in Fire Nation territory. If anyone catches him violating the terms of his banishment… well, he’ll be at the bottom of the river too.
“Hey, wait!” she shouts again.
He runs. Isn’t that why he has his scar? Isn’t cowering from fights what he’s good at?
But he’s not fast enough. The dark-haired girl chases after him, and then suddenly, with one glance over his shoulder, the river swallows him whole. The water fills his lungs immediately, and he opens his eyes to see if he can find which direction the light is coming from. He needs to swim to the surface, but no matter how hard he kicks his legs, he’s still stuck beneath the water. Just when he thinks this is the end, he rises slowly to the surface, gasping for breath. He’s never been happier to feel the rays of the sun.
The happiness is short-lived when he sees the girl standing on the bank of the river. She holds her arms out in front of her, and deftly separates them to the opposite sides of her body. The water follows her, parting enough to allow him to step onto the bank. She drops her arms and offers to help him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you under that long. I was just surprised. This part of the island’s supposed to be abandoned,” she explains.
He’s still coughing when he answers. “I know. That’s why I’m here. Why are you?”
She shrugs. “I’m kinda regrouping.”
“Regrouping for what?” Then he can’t help but blurt out, “You’re a waterbender!”
“Yeah,” she says quizzically, like it’s nothing to her.
“I thought all the waterbenders were dead.”
She looks down sadly at the river. “From what I can tell, I’m the last one. Everyone else is down there, aren’t they?”
He nods solemnly. “What are you doing in Fire Nation territory, and outing yourself like that? They’ll kill you if they get their hands on you.”
She rolls her eyes. “You sound like my brother. What are you doing here?”
Where does he begin? “Okay, don’t freak out. I’m Fire Lord Ozai’s son.”
“Excuse me?”
“But I’m banished,” he assures her. “I’m not associated with him anymore. He doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t think I want anything else to do with him either. I just don’t want to leave the Fire Nation completely. I love it here.”
“Your own father banished you?” she asks.
He burned me too, but he hasn’t known her long enough to get into all of that yet. “It’s easier to understand if you’re from the Fire Nation.”
“I don’t care where you’re from. You don’t banish your son. How old are you anyways, wandering through by yourself?”
“I just turned fourteen.”
“See, you’re just a kid.”
He takes offense. She can’t be older than he is. “You’re just a kid!”
“Yeah, I know. I ran away on my own.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I needed to learn how to bend, and between you and me,” she leans in close and whispers, “I’m looking for the Avatar.”
“The Avatar’s been dead for 100 years.”
She shrugs. “It can’t hurt to look. I don’t have anything better to do. Do you?”
He supposes he doesn’t. His father has exiled him from his home, and he won’t admit it out loud, but the loneliness is taking its toll on him. He’d even take his sister at this point, though he wishes he could see his uncle.
“So do you want any help from a banished prince?”
She smiles. “Yes, please! I’ve had to do everything myself. Do you have any skills?”
“I firebend.” He punctuates his remark with a quick flick of flame from his wrist. It sizzles on the water while she watches in awe.
“Wow, you bend so good.”
He hears longing in her voice, and he is reminded of how he always felt compared to Azula. He tells her, “You bend good too. You have steady control of the water.”
“I’m still really clumsy. I’m self-taught.”
“You’ll only get better. You just need to work at it,” he promises her. That’s how he improved in his bending. He spent hours every day working on his connection to his element, learning from the greatest masters his father could get his hands on.
“It’s going to rain tonight. I’ll be able to practice some more.”
He looks up. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. “You can tell it’s going to rain tonight?”
“Yep. It’s going to be heavy too.” Her face lights up. “Maybe the river will flood. Then I’ll have a lot to work with.”
“If the river floods, it’ll make it harder for us to travel,” he reminds her.
“We’ll be fine,” she says nonchalantly, elevating water droplets towards her from the flowing river at their feet.
He huffs. “Are you always so...so….positive?”
“Are you always so pouty?” she returns.
“I don’t know if this is going to work.”
She pats his shoulder like they’ve been lifelong friends. “Come on, two kids out to find the missing Avatar - what could go wrong?”
The river floods that night, just like she said it might. He learns her name is Katara, and she’s a chief’s daughter, though she says her father doesn’t know she’s gone; he’s too busy fighting the war. Katara stays up all night working with the water, pushing herself further and further until she drives herself mad with frustration. He finally coaxes her into getting some sleep, but the next day, she’s back in the rainstorm trying again. The fact that she’s a waterbender training in the River of Bones isn’t lost on him. Once he sees how determined she is and discovers that she truly believes she’s going to find the Avatar, he realizes the two of them are more alike than he thought. Eventually, she convinces him to leave the Fire Nation and travel east to the Earth Kingdom. By then, he learns to smile when she pats his shoulder. He learns to think of her as his life-long friend.
In a world without the war, Fire Lord Iroh’s nephew teaches Avatar Katara how to firebend.
Read on AO3 here
@zutaramonth
“You’re not my great-grandfather are you?”
She’s holding a pulsing flame in the palm or her hand, but squashes it immediately as her face turns. “What kind of question is that?”
“A valid one, in my opinion. Now fix your stance.”
She rolls her eyes but opens her feet a little wider than hip-width and bends her knees. She holds her arms defensively in front of her chest, remembering her breath the way the Fire Prince taught her.
“That’s better,” he says. He mirrors her stance and breathes deeply. When he exhales, it’s fire. He’s showed her this breath before. One day she’ll master it, but she’s just starting to learn her firebending. She has already mastered water and air.
“You remind me of a dragon.”
“They were the first firebenders,” he tells her in his Sifu Zuko voice.
“Yeah, I know. You already told me. Your great-grandfather had his own dragon.”
He smiles fondly. “Fang. He has his own tapestry in the palace. I’ll show you sometime.”
“To answer your question, I’m not your great-grandfather. That’s not how that works. I’m connected to him, but I’m not him.”
He purses his lips and nods. “I was just wondering because I, uh, well I didn’t want it to be weird.”
“Why would it be weird?”
When Prince Zuko lowers his gaze to the ground, the sun reflects off the gold of his crown. “Because I wanted to ask if you would have dinner with me.”
“We always have dinner together,” she reminds him. As the Avatar, and the student of Prince Zuko, she is an honored guest in the palace.
“I meant privately.”
“Oh.”
“And I also don’t want it to be weird if you say no. We can totally forget about me asking you, and I can still be your teacher, or someone else can be your teacher.”
She smiles and shakes her head at this foolish Fire Prince. “Zuko, I would love to have dinner with you. And for you to stay my firebending teacher.”
His eyes leap up from the ground and focus instead on her. His smile sends a thrill through her stomach. “Really?”
