Archive of Our Own

There are many perks, Katara quickly discovers, to being the Southern Water Tribe’s ambassador to the Fire Nation.

For one, she gets to ensure her people are properly represented where they were once oppressed. She gets to share her culture with the rest of the world. She’s building a bridge where there was once an impenetrable iron wall.

Living in the Fire Nation isn’t so bad, either. She likes the food. She likes how everything is so lush and green. She’d never say it out loud, but she even likes the heat, the feeling of the sun on her bare shoulders.

She likes arguing with the ministers, likes making them eat their words. She likes volunteering at the Caldera City Medical Center on the weekends.

She likes the little turtleduck pond in the courtyard her office shares with Zuko’s, the creek they sometimes sneak off to after dark to spar in a way that would frighten his advisors. She likes that her bedroom is in the same wing as his, that it comes with its own sitting room and a big window that overlooks the city.

She likes that she gets to have dinner with him at least twice a week, and that no matter how busy he is he can always find time to throw fireballs at her. She likes that he’s just Zuko with her, and that he leaves the Fire Lord at the door, piece by piece.

First is the crown, which he hangs on a peg Katara is certain was made for cloaks. Then it’s the shoulder piece, clanging when he drops it on the floor. His sash gets thrown over the back of one of the chairs, before he finally discards his outer robe. Today, though, she thinks he must be feeling particularly un-Fire-Lord-like, for when he does finally make it to his seat, he lets his forehead hit the table with a painful thunk.

“Why so glum?” Katara flicks a whip of his own tea at him, which he dodges blindly and expertly.

There’s another loud thunk as he drops a stack of paper on the table. “They’re making me review my prospects.”

Katara leans across the table to examine it. On top is a photo of a tall, thin woman in her early twenties with jewels on her ears and neck and hands. There’s a description, too. Lady Kyokyo, 21, daughter of Governor Feng. Katara assumes this Feng person is important. There’s at least a hundred different profiles in this stack, with listed hobbies including ballroom dancing and meditating and table setting.

“You don’t want to find a wife?” Katara asks.

“Not from a stack of paper.”

“Well, Zuko, I think you’re meant to interview them.”

“I don’t want to interview my future wife.” He slumps very dramatically over the table. “When would I even have time for this? I’m lucky if they let me go to the bathroom before dinner, and they want me to choose by the end of the month. They want me married off by the solstice.” He retches for good measure.

They are already halfway through May. The solstice is barely a month away.

“I have time,” she mumbles.

Zuko raises a brow.

“I’ve already negotiated this quarter’s trade agreement. I have no ambassadorial obligations for the foreseeable future.”

“Not what I meant,” he says.

“I’m just saying—I could narrow it down. For you. If you want.”

He stares at her for a long moment, eyes darting back and forth between hers like he’s looking for something very specific. Katara isn’t sure if he finds it or not.

“Okay. If you—if you want.”

“How hard can it be?” Katara pulls one out of the stack. “Rina likes iced tea. That would never work.”

He grins as she crumples Rina’s application and tosses it into the corner. “You know me.”

“Exactly.” She does. “Honestly, you should have asked me from the start.”

❀

Katara spends her Thursday evening with Fire Lord Zuko’s stack of prospects.

He is her best friend, and so she wants the best for him. And if the best is somewhere in this swath of applications, Katara is going to find it. She separates them into four stacks: Yes, No, Maybe, and What the Fuck.

Reika—likes dancing, singing, and entertaining. No.

Lian—a fortune teller. No.

Miyako—hopes to see the Fire Nation, quote, one day return to its former imperialistic glory. That one gets ripped up and thrown in the What the Fuck pile.

There are several that linger in the Maybe pile, a bunch of girls who like watercolor painting and gardening and feng shui, which are all good and fine, but they’re missing something—some kind of spark, something that feels like Zuko.

But then she wonders—is she being too cynical? Maybe Zuko would like watercolor painting. Or maybe he would like a woman who likes watercolor painting. Or maybe—maybe it’s not about shared interest, but more about shared perspective, shared values, shared conversations and dreams.

How is Katara supposed to be the one to measure that?

So the Maybe pile turns into the Yes pile, and then she’s going back through all the Nos, arguing with herself over whether fortune telling is actually fun and warrants a second chance. In the end, it ends up in the Yes pile with most of the others.

It’s all this wondering and worrying that has her hunched over on her bedroom floor until well after the sun sets, which—

“You’re late,” Zuko calls to her when she finally scurries her way into the courtyard.

Before she can even make her excuses, he greets her with a fire whip.

Katara shrieks as she ducks, reaching for the water at her hip and retaliating with a spear of ice, forcing him back and back before he can hurl another fireball at her.

“I was busy”—she distracts him with a wave, then trips him with a water whip—“trying to find you a bride.”

This irritates him—either because she’s knocked him on his ass or because she’s reminded him of his duty, she doesn’t know. She can see it in the furrow of his brow, the heat of the flames he sends her way, so hot they burn white at the edges.

He’s sloppy when he’s upset, though, and Katara is nimble and practiced and dodges his blows with ease. It’s certainly a bigger show than normal that they’re putting on in the courtyard, but Zuko doesn’t seem to concern himself with the ire of his advisors, not tonight.

His attitude only improves when Katara extinguishes it. She drops the entire volume of the pond atop his head, fish and all, and through the wet slap of the water against the grass, she hears his disbelieving laugh.

“You win again,” he mutters.

“I always do,” she reminds him.

Because she is a good friend, Katara siphons the water from his clothes and hair and returns it to the awaiting turtleducks, who honk indignantly at her leisure. The lilies float to the top, the fish slip beneath the surface, and Zuko plops down dramatically at the edge of the pond to commiserate with his favorite little pets.

“She’s so mean,” he tells the littlest turtleduck as Katara sits down beside him. “And scary.”

“Sorry for being late,” she says, letting the turtleduck nibble playfully on her fingers at Zuko’s encouragement. “I lost track of time. There are…so many applications.”

He hums a noncommittal sort of sound. “It’s not—you really don’t have to put that much effort into it.”

“I just thought it would be easier.” Katara sends the turtleduck away on a gentle wave. “I thought I would know what you wanted. But then I had a crisis about the fact that I had no idea what you wanted. How do you feel about watercolors?”

“I’m the Fire Lord,” he says solemnly. “I’m not allowed to want things.”

“That’s not true.” She leans her shoulder into his, nudging him until he finally relents and meets her gaze. “And you’ll always be just Zuko to me.”

The corner of his mouth lifts at that, even if only a little.

“You’ve given so much,” she tells him quietly. “You should go after what you want.”

He lies back on the grass, tipping his chin to the sky as the stars swath him in a sea of silver. “What if I just want to stay right here?”

Katara lies down beside him. “Then we’ll stay.”

❀

Katara becomes consumed by her project. There are only eight days left in the month. Only thirty until the solstice. And still the stack is thick and rife with indecision.

She eliminates the watercolors girl from contention during breakfast. She adds her back during lunch. She contemplates the implications of choosing a general’s daughter over a governor’s daughter while she suffers through bureaucratic meetings about trade and galas and ceremonies.

She has a complete list in her head by the time she marches down to the creek. It’s like she knows these girls by heart—their photos, their interests, their lineage. She’s memorized each of their little self-written blurbs. At this point, she thinks she could recognize them by their handwriting.

It’s dark and humid as she scales the outer wall. The grass is soft and wet on the other side, and Katara relishes in coolness on her bare feet. She’s still forty yards away when she spots Zuko, meditating cross-legged in the moonlight that filters through the swaying trees. It’s incredibly stupid—the Fire Lord, sitting half naked in a clearing outside the palace, defenseless and glowing like a beacon—and Katara plans to tell him so.

But for a moment she’s struck by the beauty of it—of him. The small flame in his palm is a golden contrast to the silver starlight that shimmers across his shoulders. The ends of his hair wave around his neck and chin. With every deep breath he takes, the scar on his chest expands and contracts like a pulsing star.

He doesn’t even move as she approaches, though Katara has never been known for her stealth. His eyes stay closed, his fire holds steady, the speed of his breaths does not waver.

She flicks a spray of water at him.

He dodges it.

“You’re an idiot,” she says. “I could have been anyone. I could have killed you.”

He cracks his good eye open. “I knew it was you.”

She fights the urge to mirror his grin. “Sure you did.”

Zuko just shrugs. Water flows quietly over the stones in the creek bed between them. Katara raises her hand, and a tiny waterspout spins around her fingers.

“I narrowed it down to twenty,” she says.

Only then does Zuko extinguish the flame in his fist.

“Well—twenty plus the girl who does the watercolors. I still don’t know how you feel about painting.”

He stays silent, looking anywhere but at her, and suddenly the creek feels like an ocean between them.

Katara lets her water splash back into the creek. “You should meet with them. I’ve invited them to come on Thursday.”

“We’re supposed to have dinner Thursday.”

“Well—you can meet with them on Friday, then.”

“I have that late meeting. And then we’re supposed to spar.”

“We don’t have to spar, Zuko. You can fight with these girls instead—about feudalism and bureaucracy and—I don’t know—proper court etiquette.”

All she can see is the honey-gold of his eyes when he says, “I’d rather fight with you.”

She swallows. Of course that’s what she’d rather do. But the solstice is breathing down their necks, and if Zuko wants any chance at knowing the woman he’s going to make his wife, he can’t be wasting time at the creek with Katara.

It occurs to her then, perhaps for the first time, how things might change. Zuko will dine with his wife, instead. Maybe they’ll do watercolors. Maybe she’ll read his palms. He won’t be able to sneak away in the middle of the night. He won’t be here—waiting for her in their spot—unguarded and alone and only hers.

“Okay,” Katara says. Her voice sounds tight and strained. “Fine, then.” She shoots a stream of water at his head. “Let’s fight.”

He comes to life before her eyes, scrambling to his feet and adopting his bending stance before he sends a hot fiery whip her way. It’s a dance, Katara thinks, the way they move around each other like this. He knows exactly how to parry her. She knows what he’s going to do before he even does it.

They both end up in the creek, then back on opposite embankments, weaving in and out of the trees. There is no smoke, only a hot bath of steam as Katara meets every blazing offensive with a suffocating blanket of water.

She skates along ice of her own making, and she can hear Zuko’s puffs of breath just behind her as he melts her path. He is the only one who’s ever been able to keep up.

He never wins, though. She’ll toy with him for a bit, prolong the inevitable, let him think he can win, for once, and then—

She’s overtaken by a flaming wall of…fire? At first she thinks it’s water, and she’s accidentally bent something flammable—is there oil in the creek? Some kind of gas in the air?—but she can feel the woosh of the air as it’s gobbled up by the flames. It may move like water, but it’s only fire, arcing up in a graceful wave over her head.

She rolls out from under it, watching as it crashes and sizzles into the grass.

“What,” Katara pants, “was that?”

Zuko blinks at the aftermath of his own creation. “It was a—a flaming…wave.”

“A what?”

He shrugs. Clears his throat. Stretches his fingers out in front of him like he’s never seen his own hands before. Then, he shrugs again. “It’s a new technique I’m trying.”

“Your new technique is…” Katara pictures the wave over her head, the grace of it, the heat. “…waterbending?”

“I mean—in theory,” he says. “I just—I didn’t know it would work, but—firebending is all about speed and precision and power, and I thought—when you’re bending, it’s like—” His mouth opens and closes a few times like he can’t find the right words. “Momentum. And—and patience, and—it’s power, but it’s different, it’s inevitable, and—I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d…try it.”

Katara, frankly, isn’t sure how to respond to that. “You figured out how to do that just from watching me?”

He rubs at the back of his neck. “I’ve practiced it a few times.”

“Huh,” says Katara. Her mind is already racing.

She looks at her hands. Reaches for the water in the stream. It swirls around her fingers, ready and waiting. She thinks about power and precision—maybe it’s in the chi, or maybe just her breath, but if she could make her moves faster, stronger—

“I know what you’re thinking,” Zuko says, eyeing her with an expression that is equally terrified and awestruck, “and yes, I think you can.”

“Show me,” she whispers.

Zuko mutters something about teaching her ways to skewer him later, but then he’s behind her, directing her stance. He splays his palm across her stomach, reminding her to brace her core. He murmurs breath cues in her ear.

It’s different, bending like this, but not unfamiliar. She’s defended against it, overtaken it, ran from it and toward it. She’s watched Zuko do it across from her for years. She’s seen him teach it to Aang.

But it wasn’t like this with Aang, was it? There were no secluded midnight sessions beneath the moon. There was no touching, no whispering, no shared heat.

It’s a heady sort of feeling, and Katara leans into it, reveling in the way her element behaves like Zuko’s. Sharp, focused, and powerful. It’s an intimate thing they’ve done, she realizes. Combined their bending, in a way.

Despite the stack of prospects on her desk, for one night, Katara thinks of nothing but this: the water at her fingertips, the warmth at her back, and Zuko’s steady voice in her ear. 

❀

Katara rearranges her Friday meetings so she can interview all twenty-one girls.

She doesn’t tell Zuko about it. She isn’t sure why.

Every time she thinks about it, she thinks of his hand on her abdomen, his voice in her ear. She thinks about the way he looked meditating in the clearing. The way he wielded his element like hers. She thinks about how they stayed there until the sun whispered its first rays of morning light, the way it felt when he helped her hop over the palace wall, his arms secure around her waist.

And so every time she thinks of it, the words don’t come out.

The meeting hall is eerily quiet when she arrives, though all twenty-one girls are there and waiting. They look eager, but apprehensive. Of her, of each other. Katara considers for the first time that she’s helping choose someone not only for Zuko, but for the entire Fire Nation, and this all the other nations and kingdoms and tribes around the world.

It’s a lot of pressure, and so Katara asks the hard-hitting questions. She scribbles notes in the margins of each application. Some girls she dismisses on the spot. She’s not trying to be mean—she’s taken on this task, and she’s taking it seriously.

The interviews go late into the evening. Katara is hungry and tired and her back hurts from sitting in the same chair for so long. She’s on the last one—Lady Akira—and she can see the light at the end of the tunnel. She asks her the standard questions: about her upbringing, her passions in life, what she thinks about the political state of the Fire Nation. When the girl mentions her family’s political influence, Katara makes a note to investigate their dealings during the war.

Lady Akira peers across the table. “What did you just write?”

Katara jumps. So far, no one else has had the nerve to ask. She moves her hand to cover her writing. “It’s just a note.”

The girl narrows her eyes. “May I ask, Katara—what is the nature of your being here?”

“I’m—I’m an ambassador here.”

“No,” says Lady Akira. “I mean here. In this room. Interviewing all of us.”

Katara blinks. “I—well, Zu—Fire Lord Zuko and I are old friends.” How can she possibly explain? “I’m…helping.”

“It’s funny,” she says, though she does not laugh. “I have family in the city. I’ve heard the rumors, the stories. I’ve even seen the Ember Island play, you know. Fire and ice. It’s…poetic.”

Katara isn’t sure what she’s getting at. “Lady Akira—”

“Every single woman before me has walked out of here believing they have no chance.”

Katara holds her breath.

“Most of us have been raised for this. Trained for this. So I can’t help but wonder—perhaps you’re here to interfere with that. Perhaps you want him for yourself.”

“That’s absurd,” Katara says, but her own voice sounds muffled, hard to hear over the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears.

It is absurd. Katara has put everything into this. Time and energy and more effort than she could have ever imagined. She doesn’t—she couldn’t. It’s absurd. Isn’t it?

Lady Akira stands. “If the Fire Lord has any interest in a union with me, I’d like to hear it from him.”

And then she’s gone.

Katara is left glued to her seat, jaw hanging open, an uncomfortable flutter in her chest.

She feels…exposed. A little angry. Worse, she thinks Zuko would probably like Lady Akira. A woman who spoke her mind. A woman who stood her ground.

She’s late to the courtyard, half because she spends too much time alone in the meeting room—head spinning, heart pounding—and half because she ‘s so distracted on her way there that she takes at least two wrong turns.

Lady Akira’s words echo in her head all the way there. You want him for yourself.

No, Katara tells herself. She doesn’t. He’s her friend. Her best friend. She wants the best for him.

You want him for yourself.

It’s dark in the courtyard. And oppressively hot. A breeze blows through, but she barely feels it. Zuko is playing with the turtleducks by the pond, hair tied back, glowing, breathing, looking up at her, grinning, lighting a fire up his forearm that makes Katara sweat.

There’s no greeting. There’s hardly ever any greeting, just the dance of their bending, but this time Katara is off balance, a whole step behind—

You want him for yourself.

He hurls a fireball at her, and she dodges. It’s like she doesn’t even remember how to summon the water to her hands. Her ice spear comes out as a wimpy jet of water. She can’t aim for anything. She spends more time running away than actually defending his attacks.

You want him for yourself.

Zuko is not used to being on the offensive. It’s usually him that’s running, that’s scrambling to defend. At first he pushes on, thrilled that he has the upper hand, but she can feel his confusion in the speed of his strikes, can see the concern etched into his brow as she continues to fumble her own element.

It ends when he sends a fire whip and she lands flat on her back.

All she can see is the moon, full and bright, and then it’s his face, his raised brow, the dimple in his unscarred cheek.

You want him for yourself.

He pulls her to her feet. Katara can’t bear the feeling of his skin on hers for even a second too long, and so she wrings her hands in front of her while he looks to the sky, frowning like the moon must have up and disappeared from the sky for her to have lost to him so badly.

“Are you alright?”

She’s not. She suddenly feels like crying.

His eyes are bright. Brilliantly gold. And the way he’s looking at her—has he always looked at her like this?

So she lies.

“I’m fine.”

She turns on her heel and stalks out of the courtyard. She doesn’t know where she’s going. She doesn’t know how to escape this: the ache in her chest, unearthed after all this time; the pounding of her heartbeat in shame, desperation, want; her soul, calling out for his as she stumbles away.

“Katara,” he says.

Katara keeps walking.

“Katara,” he calls again, closer this time.

He grabs her by the arm, spinning her round to face him, and suddenly he’s all she can see, there and familiar and hers, and she’s been selfish without even knowing it, hoarding him for herself—his time, his affection—all while he’s been meant to find a wife, a partner, someone to lead a nation by his side.

How could she have been so selfish? How could she have been so stupid?

Concern worries his brow, and his fingertips ghost across her forehead. Barely there, but enough to make her suck in a gasping breath.

“I think I burned off half your eyebrow,” he says.

When she brings her own hand to her face, she finds it to be true. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, brushing the spot with his thumb, and she thinks about it then: about rising onto her toes, linking her arms around his neck, about being selfish.

Would he kiss her back? Would he wrap his arms around her waist? Would he splay his hand across her back?

Would he taste the way he smells, like firelillies and smoke, and would he feel the way he speaks, low and soft and warm? Would he stop her? Would he lay her down right here in the grass? Would he be hers?

He belongs to a nation. Katara knows this. So she keeps her hands at her side. She keeps her thoughts to herself.

Her lies taste like ash in her mouth. “I’m fine,” she says. “Really.”

His brow furrows, but he doesn’t push. His hand falls away from her face. She misses it instantly.

“Just a long day,” she mutters.

“Hey, Katara—”

“I have to go,” she says in a rush.

She turns before she can change her mind, before she can ruin their friendship, before she does something they’ll both regret.

This time, he doesn’t chase her down. She makes it to her room without having to speak to anyone. She undresses, as she usually does, bathes, combs her hair, climbs into bed, waits for sleep to come.

But it doesn’t.

Because she does. Want him for herself.

❀

In the end, Katara chooses three women. Lady Akira included.

She doesn’t know how to talk to Zuko, so she avoids him. She adds the final interviews to his calendar via his secretary. She blocks them off during their scheduled dinner so she has more time to wallow. It’s not like she has an appetite anyway.

Instead she heads to the creek, where the late afternoon sun filters hazily through the trees. The water is cool, and she lets the hem of her skirt fall into it. She likes the weight of it, the way it grounds her, the way she knows she could pull the water from each individual thread if she wanted to.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there when she hears Zuko step into the clearing. Her back is to him—just like his eyes were closed—but she, too, knows it’s him.

“How were my picks?” she asks.

“I’m sure they were very nice.”

She whips her head around. “You didn’t interview them?”

“I told you I didn’t want to interview my wife,” he says quietly.

Katara is suddenly angry. Heat rises in her chest. It’s his fault she had to have this grand realization anyway—and at the worst possible time—and now it’s all for nothing, because he hasn’t even chosen. “What was the point of all this, then?”

“Katara,” he says. His laugh is humorless. “Come on.”

Katara can do nothing but watch as he moves to stand in the stream with her. The water rushes around his ankles, soaking the bottom of his pants, but he pays it no mind. He takes a heaving breath. Reaches for her hand. Changes his mind halfway.

And just like she knows the weight of his footfalls, the sound of his breath, the way he’ll use his fire in response to her ice—she knows what he’s going to say before he does it.

“A wise woman once told me I should go after what I want.” There’s a stone in his hand, two ribbons of blue silk. “And I’m—I’m sorry if this is—I don’t want to ruin—” He takes another heaving breath. “I don’t know why I waited so long. I should have asked you from the beginning. You know me,” he says, almost pleadingly. “And I know you, Katara, and—I think—”

“Zuko,” she manages. “You…want me to be Fire Lady?”

“Who better than you?” he says. “For my people, for your people, for this new and changing world we’re living in. It would be an honor to have you rule by my side.” He looks down at the stone in his palm, curls his fingers around it protectively. “But I want you selfishly, Katara. As I am. As you are.”

Katara imagines she must look like a fish, standing there in the creek, mouth opening and closing around words she doesn’t know how to say. 

He deflates at her silence, his fist falling dejectedly to his side. Katara catches it, peels back his fingers and gently pries the moonstone from his grasp.

It’s beautiful. There’s a sun and a crescent moon etched in the center, and her name in her own language carved around the edge. She can see the tiny imperfections, the little hesitations that prove it was made by hand, his hand.

She runs her fingers over the pattern. “How many times did it take you to get the swirls right?”

He exhales a shaky laugh. “Like, twelve.”

“That’s a lot of moonstone.”

“Tough to come by these days.” He shifts on his feet. “Katara—”

“Will you put it on me?”

Now he’s the one that looks like a fish. It makes her heart swell in her chest—his uncertainty, the delicacy of it all. Instead of waiting for his response, she turns her back to him, sweeping her hair up and out of the way.

Eventually, the pendant drops over her vision, and trembling fingers brush against her shoulders.

“Are you—are you sure?”

She turns her head, and his golden gaze is so close. It’s so familiar and warm and yes, he has always looked at her like this. How did it take her so long to see it?

“Yes,” she whispers.

Zuko ties it off. The weight of it is nice, grounding. It rests perfectly in the hollow of her throat, exactly how her mother’s necklace did all those years ago.

When she finally turns around, Zuko is still bewildered and fishlike, his gaze flitting back and forth from her neck to her eyes like he’s looking for the joke, waiting for her to say just kidding.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I—” He shakes his head. “Katara—I came out here with a necklace and a prayer, but I think—I think you just agreed to marry me.”

She nods. “Yes.”

He blinks at her. “Why?”

“Wh—what do you mean why?”

“All this time, you never gave me any clue that you might feel—”

Katara scoffs. “Neither did you!”

“Katara.” He levels her with a glare. “I have been in love with you since—since always. Everyone knows it. I thought you knew it.”

“Well maybe you should have just told me!”

“I was afraid you’d trap me in a block of ice and float me all the way to the North Pole!”

Katara scoffs. “That’s a bit much, even for me.”

He raises his brows as if to say, are you sure? And then she’s smiling, and he’s smiling, and they’re both grinning like they’re having the time of their lives. Perhaps they are.

“Will you just shut up and kiss me already?” she says.

Turns out he does taste like firelillies, and a little like smoke, and his arms are warm around her waist, and now he is hers.