When Zuko comes back the next day, he refuses to talk about their game. Striding in, plonking down, he starts playing before she's fully woken up. He's so focused on not reacting, on pretending the air of his tantrum still hangs in the stale room, he forgets to watch her drink from the cup.
Three moves in, he speaks. "What was the lie?"
"What was what?" Katara asks, brow pinching as she focuses on her lily play because he's clearly trying to dominate with the moose-tiger fang strategy.
"What was your lie?" he repeats louder.
"Oh. I'm seventeen, not sixteen." Her interest in ancient Watertribe Declaring ceremonies weeks ago makes sense now. Seventeen, so she must have had hers. He doesn't react, just slides his piece into her lilies bud and severs the root when he switches the fangs for the claws. She frowns, wondering how she could have missed the obvious manoeuvre. He's a sore loser, doesn't mean she's any better. "Your topknot looks weird."
"You'd look better in red," he mutters without much thought, but slashes her with a victorious grin nonetheless as he scoots her spent pieces into his hand.
~ ~ ~
Suffering Katara on the trip north isn't as bad as Zuko thought it would be. She still never shuts up, and each week he's subject to the next asinine game she's concocted to please her overactive mind while they actually play Pai Sho. But she's challenging without being spiteful. Competitive without the game being ruined if she loses. She never does grow out of being a sore loser though, or winner. But he's no saint either, and getting better at returning her verbal sparring matches.
Despite his backhanded compliment their first week, the red Fire Nation leisure clothes he sent remain unworn. According to Lily, relayed to him with a faint touch of amusement to the handmaiden's usual purr, she prefers to keep them folded under her scrolls so the paper doesn't erode against the hard wood.
He's never seen her in anything but the oversized watertribe parka or her pelts, but when you're surrounded by the ocean and firebenders, laundry isn't exactly a time-consuming task. Not that he minds. One consistent thing about Katara, she's not a morning person. It's a common occurrence that she's still half asleep when he comes with tea and a determination to beat her at Pai Sho, even if she has no idea if it's morning, noon or night in her modest accommodations. As a red blooded, hot tempered man of the Fire Nation, he won't do her the disservice of pretending he hasn't noticed she's pretty. He gets the chance to notice the further they sail from the poles and the ships running pipe insulation takes less time to kick in. She sheds the parka usually halfway through their games, until he comes in one day and it's tossed beside her chest of scrolls. The loose tunic flutters when she drags herself over to the table, spilling over long, umber legs.
"How in spirits names do you survive this heat?" She's not even set up the Pai Sho board this time, using it to fan her flushed face.
"Do you always complain this much?" Zuko responds behind a sip of tea.
She watches the motion with faint disbelief. "Apologies, your royal sunshine, months of repressing my own displeasures with the world. If I don't let off some steam, I fear I'll melt all over this lovely box."
He raises an unimpressed eyebrow at her. He'll get her dry wit whether he's silent or not, so shrugs. "You're the waterbender. Figured that's what you'd want."
"It's unsettling when you do that," she mutters.
"Do what?"
"Crack a joke without smiling." He was joking? "Spirits, you look like one of the blank black depth demons of the Ever Night."
They've read about that. "Ever Night, that's a tradition of the North Pole."
She favours him with a sideways look, then tips her head back to lean against the wall. When she speaks, her voice is soft, a thousand miles away "It marks the coming of winter; the sun cannot rise for the long cold months. Nor can it set in the Endless summer skies. Demons and spirits roam closest to our worlds when moon and sun gather their strength.
"What do sweet summer children know
of winters kiss,
nor the brittle touch of cold fire
to chests full of winter breath?
Though I did mourn,
when winters born,
on summers wings comes life.
For two hearts beat in the endless sky;
summers love, winters strife."
Zuko remembers to breath only when she exhales herself, a puff of weak, cold air from lungs missing those cold plains. "That wasn't in the scrolls."
Blinking, she looks over at him. "No." She seems content to leave it there, but his unbearable curiosity must show. "It won't be in any scroll. It's a passage of Southern Watertribe prayer. The whole thing will be spoken on the ice. All our history, our stories, our prayers, are spoken first on the ice."
"And written after?" He looks over at her closed chest.
"Not by us." The notion doesn't offend her, though. She shrugs it off as another part of life. He supposes without other cultures taking an interest in hers, she wouldn't have gotten the chance to read those scrolls to begin with. "We speak, share stories. Trek the ice, collect more stories. Leaving the South Pole has shown me its limitations, but it's our way."
Maybe because it's the first piece of culture she shares. Maybe it's because he's never heard her sound so mournful, opposed to the anger and righteous knowledge she loves to lord that her people remain peaceful in the times they live in. Either way, he doesn't try to stop the words spilling from his mouth.
"We only pray to Agni."
Katara's blue eyes bug wide. "You don't pray to any other spirits?"
"My father would like his subjects to believe only in Agni's warmth." He feels her eyes. Could see them if he looked, his right side facing her as always. "My father and grandfather before him believed our lives are our existence, our heaven. Why want his people to live for a hereafter when being fortunate to be born of the Fire Nation is itself a heaven?
"My Uncle, and many like him, hold fast to the spirits. They offer comfort, companionship, so uncle says. I'm... not sure what I believe."
He's a product of two ideological upbringings, he supposes. His father was strict. Only take Agni's name, in vain or with resonance; he couldn't care so long as no other spirit except the one who provides warmth is spoken in any regard higher than man.
But his uncle welcomes higher powers into his heart. "Uncle rises with the sun, so that when he feels the first touch of Agni's rays, he remembers to be thankful for another day, and burn his prayer. He'll take his tea making set out so he can burn it properly."
"There's a right way to burn something?" Katara asks with just enough spite for him to understand what she's really saying and ignore it.
"Never burn a prayer to the spirits with your own fire, according to Uncle."
Katara looks at his hands, at the lukewarm teapot. "Fire you create or fire from a tea set, what's the difference?"
Zuko remembers asking that exact question himself, ten years old and wondering why his Uncle had dragged him out into the courtyards the morning of the summer solstice to wait for the sunrise. "When you can conjure something at whim, it loses its significance." He snaps a finger. Flame spurts to life at the tip of his first before he cools it to a rich orange. "I wouldn't be praying because I thought of a reason to be thankful, but because I wanted to ask for something."
And whatever possess him to keep speaking, past his point, is beyond him, only that it feels true. "Fire is the only element which can be conjured from the bender. When I feel the sun on the back of my neck, I remember to appreciate that."
He closes his fist around the flame, holding it there until smoke drifts between his clenched fingers. He waits for Katara to laugh, say it's unnecessary, say firebenders not believing in the sanctity of the spirits doesn't surprise her one bit. What do monsters have to believe in, after all, except themselves?
"We speak our prayers," Katara offers. "But I suppose we have some written histories. But not like those." She gestures to the chest. "They'll be in a carving. Like this." She empties the rest of the teapot into her cup, then reaches inside to scoop out the damp leaves. Zuko watches her fingers deftly scrape a pattern in the gunk. From where he sits, he thinks it looks like a wave breaking. "The shamans will carve their offering into the ice and send it to the spirits with a prayer. That's the carving I made for my Declaring ceremony and gave it to the spirits through expressive movements."
"What does it mean?" Zuko assumes it doesn't really mean a wave.
Katara finishes her prayer with three fingers dragging the gunky mess until it fades like the wave is returning to the ocean. Her fingers are stained green, leaving light smudges on the table as she delicately puts the finishing touches in the water with her nails. Carving those intricate details into the ice must take hours.
"New beginnings." She murmurs, mind returning to that day on the ice. "And how with every new day, we have the chance to be better than the one before."
~ ~ ~
He knows he notices too much of Katara if she beats him three times in a row. Not because her long, toned legs distract him – most of the time – but because Katara begins to go... funny. Sluggish in her waking, less responsive to his wake-up calls and clever returns to her quips. Except they aren't quips anymore because he'll clap back with, "If firebenders are full of hot air does that make waterbenders frigid?", and instead of shutting him down with her sharp wit she'll throw him out of her cell for the day.
He can't put his finger on it, not until she loses one day for the second time in a row and a sharp fuck, punctuated by her hand slamming the table, can he see the tension in her shoulders, the bags purple and heavy under eyes. She hasn't been sleeping, or if she has, it's in the spaces between his visits.
His theory is proven right when she can't get out of bed for their next game. Zuko's used to her taking her time getting up by this point, so settles himself in his usual spot between her and the door to wait.
And wait.
"Are you that afraid of getting trounced?" He likes to think his trash talk has improved. Her groan lets him know she's conscious, but she doesn't so much as roll over. Stacked under her blanket, he realises she's burrowed beneath the pillows too. He doesn't care to put a name to the spike of alarm he feels in his gut. "Waterbender?"
"Nggmm," she answers. Never. Never, does she let him see any weakness. Now she slumps as she rolls over. One wincing blue eye finds him amid the tumble of blankets and pillows. "Don't be a dick." He didn't think he was. "... but it's the cycle."
"The... Oh." Thank Agni's warmth she's already pulled the pillow back down before his pale complexion can give away the mortification creeping through his gut, or the flush rushing up his neck. "Okay, um. I have a sister. Her... She doesn't- has never confided how she feels during this time with me but... I assume you're having the cramps and-"
"Spirits, Zuko, no!"
"I understand that this is an unpleasant time of the month for women. I can get Lily to increase the maids this week so you can clean-"
Her pillow hits him in the chest. "One, you don't know. No man knows. Two, it's the moons cycle, not mine, you creep!"
"It's not the same thing?"
She forces herself up, blanket a cone shaped cape atop her head that she keeps wrapped around her as much as possible. Free of her face, he watches her wince in the light, pull the blanket lower on her forehead so her face sits in shadow. The light's hurting her, he realises. Not just her eyes. She's wincing away, as if it stabs at her skin.
"Whoever told you women go crazy during the full moon was not your friend." Azula! She always lies. Agni he's an idiot for believing that was a real euphemism. "It's a waterbender thing. My powers are linked to the moon and the water. I've barely touched water since I was dragged onto this ship. I haven't seen the moon at all, and it's going to be full tonight."
"You're having a pseudo-cold because you haven't seen the moon in two months?" He scoffs. She knows the moon will be full, just knows, brushing off some of the most awesome power he's ever seen. "That's ridiculous."
"And how would you feel if you were kept from the sun?" she asks so confidently it chills his blood a little.
"You weren't like this a month ago."
She turns away, blanket blocking her face from him. "Last month, when you happened to avoided this cell like the plague for a whole week?"
Her unresponsiveness when he walked in. How she's using the blanket to cover up because if he looks to the corner, her clothes are still balled up, even the comfy tunic and leggings she's grown accustom to wearing.
Last month he was absent. She was expecting him to be so again. "Should I leave?"
"You're asking me?" The blankets ruffle as she looks over. Her hair's loose from the braids she favours and some of its stuck to her forehead where she sweats. She considers him, the Pai Sho board, sighs. "I'm not up for playing today."
She starts when he unfolds and strides from the room. She's just finished getting herself comfy when he returns, kicking the door shut behind him as he juggles his armload over to her mattress. Covered back up, one eye watches him set out the teapot and cup, the shallow bowl and cloth, before he moves over to her incense burner to replace the oil with the lavender concoction he dug out of his own collection.
"The tea's lavender too, and some willow bark for your head," he says as he works.
"The first drink you ever made me," she quips dryly. Must be feeling better already.
"I know I'm not the best at tea, or women, so I asked my uncle."
"Lots of liquid here." China scrapes the metal floor. He repositions so he's side on and she freezes as she's about to pour herself a cup. The cloth soaks in the bowl.
He turns back to his work. "You're in no shape to fight me, water or no water."
"I'm this way because of the full moon." But she scowls down at the brim-full teacup. "No that that's saying much."
Zuko snaps sparks under the burners and waits for the lavender scent to fill the room, and to think of something he can say to that. "I'll leave you in peace. Don't try to waterbend with this and spurn my generosity. I'll be sending Lily to watch you and posting guards outside the door."
He goes to do just that when a softly spoken word stops him in his tracks. "Stay."
His hand is on the door. "You're not up for Pai Sho."
A slim brown arm slithers out from under the blanket to point at her chest. "Read to me. Nothing observed by the Fire Nation. I'll know." She will. She almost ripped the parchment when whoever the scholar had been was stupid enough to write down Firemoth because he couldn't remember the South Pole specimen.
The hand grabs the cloth on the way back under the blanket and places it over her eyes.
"Read to you?"
"You remember how, don't you?"
She moves her head around, trying to find the perfect balance between cool cloth and blocking the harsh, penetrating light. He waves his hand, and her sigh is practically orgasmic as the sconces on the wall dim. "I think I can handle it."
He handles it well enough, even gets a laugh or two out of her. She's too tired to enjoy her hobby of correcting him, but when she doesn't snort at his butchering of a water spirit name he's never been able to get right, he keeps going because he knows that means she's finally down.
When he's sure she's out – mouth slightly open, one side of the cloth drooping below her nose – he peels the cloth off and soaks it in the water. She didn't wring it out when she put it on, the hair by her temples still damp even after the hours he's been reading, but he does.
He smooths his thumb down her cheek as he replaces the cloth. The action brings a sigh from her sleeping lips, and she nuzzles her cheek into his palm, seeking his warmth. He jerks back when he realizes he's still doing it, hasty to pick up where he left off in the scroll.
~ ~ ~
"Sunshine... Zuko, wake up. It's night."
He's starting, groaning when his neck cricks. Was he napping? He never naps. He's lucky if he gets a solid three hours across the night. Blinking rapidly in the gloom, he looks towards the bed. Katara sits exactly as she had before, except the blanket swoops across her shoulders, over her chest and pools in her lap like a summer solstice party cape. She's wide awake, looking at him, none of the earlier fatigue or lethargy in her sparkling blue eyes.
She could have killed him or rolled the dice and tried to escape.
For a long moment he gapes at her, mind stilly foggy from sleep, until she pouts and looks away from him. "You'd catch flies if anything could get inside here."
"How can you tell it's night?" Zuko's half-awake mouth fumbles around the words.
She lifts an eyebrow. "The moon's full."
She practically shudders with the declaration, tipping her head up as if she could feel the rays through the layers and layers of metal. The breath she takes in is wistful and mourning. Eyes clench shut around the wetness gathering beneath the lids.
Pulling her manacles off his belt, he looks at them in his lap. It feels like so long ago he took them off of her, but he never comes to the cell without them.
Her eyes widen when she sees them. "It'll pass with the moon tonight. I won't bend at all, I haven't. I swear."
She could have killed him where he sat and chose to let him sleep instead.
"Put them on." She shuffles back when he holds them out to her. "I can't take you up unless you wear them."
She blinks. Digests his words. Then she's snatching the cuffs, cinching one on with blind fury. He almost laughs as he helps her lock the other on and she jumps up, running to the door. It's like telling a child of the Caldera they're going to the city reflecting pools to look at the Turtleducks and get shaved ice and a wave of affection squeezes his heart. More than once he has to slow her down lest she get herself lost in his ship, knowing that the only way she needs to go is up but too frantic to find the door to the outside.
Yet when he opens the door, she doesn't sprint out. Toeing at the threshold, silver painting her slippers in intermittent light. Practically vibrating. Nervousness ripples from her. So much daring and will reduced to a moment of paralysing hope. He can't help but admire her, stalwart and glowing in the moonlight.
"I'd hate being kept from the sun," Zuko whispers behind her. "After two months I'd be afraid Agni had taken it back, or that it had been stolen from the sky. I could only prey but have no fire to light it." He reaches over her shoulder so his pale hand glows silver in the moonlight. "I... I shouldn't have stolen the moon from you. Tui's waiting."
She breathes in. "It's impossible to steal the moon. More like you stole me." Steps out. Push and pull. The cool breeze dances with her loose hair, tossing and tumbling it around her as if tempting her to leap into the night sky. Moonlight bathes her in silver, cloaking her like a second skin of crushed diamonds. He's seen men burn the air around them. Women shimmer like a hot summer day.
He's never seen anyone sparkle.
She breathes the ocean air the way he breathes for his exercises. Does she know she's doing it? He can't imagine she's completely in her body right now, caught in this delicate plane between water and moon.
And then she's breaking, rushing for the ship edge, and only because he knows how unpredictable her temper can be does he fear for a second she might jump the rail. Half her body goes over, but she only sighs in rejuvenated bliss as the ocean spray dapples her face. When she looks back at him the waters chill bite has settled in her dusky cheeks, flushing her with life.
He's always connected life with the sun, so much he's never truly noticed how beautiful the moon is.
Reaching for him, she laughs when her capped hands jangle. He catches the laugh in his chest before it can bloom, shaking his head at her and bringing forth more giggles. Crossing the deck, he joins her at looking over the railing.
Their reflections ripple up at them. Zuko starts when he sees not only Katara's wide grin, but his own softer smile.
She rocks her shoulder into his playfully. "Scary, right?"
Her touch almost sends him reeling. It wasn't even skin to skin and he still almost runs from it. The last time they touched he'd done it, slowly and deliberate so she knew it was coming. Only watching her reflection watch the moonlight dance across the water and shimmer through the waves, pretending they're two different people who don't know what it means to flinch away from casual touch, can he calm his racing heart.
Until he realises she's watching his reflection too. Instinctively, he turns his scar away before it can ruin the beautiful blue water. "Not too scary, right? You feel better now?"
"Hey." She taps her manacle on his hand until he looks back down. "I feel much better, thank you."
Reflection and Katara disappear from the water before his eyes, reappearing in her ethereal halo. Both look up to watch the swollen dark clouds cross the moon. Dependant on its glow, the shadows obliterate their visages in the water the second they cover the moon.
"Oh, I didn't know it was going to be overcast." His brow crinkles. "It doesn't affect how much of the moon you can feel? Will this be enough so you don't-"
The clouds fall. Rain drops the size of children's fists pelt the ship, the deck and them, drenching everything in seconds. Katara's reflection shrieks, then bursts into joyous laughter. Tipping her head back, her face glows with intermittent moonlight and fresh water.
Raised in a palace, Zuko's courtly instincts kick in and he strips off his cloak. He's halfway to wrapping it around her shoulders when she notices and cocks her head at him curiously. So close, water drips from the end of her nose onto his chin. "Right. Waterbender," he says sheepishly, and even under the chill rain feels himself blush. "Wait, waterbender! You can't be out here!"
Blue eyes crumple when he grabs her wrists above the manacles. "But-"
"No buts. You think I'm going to let a waterbender out in the rain, on a full moon? How stupid do you think I-"
"Zuko, please." Katara blinks as the rain splashes their faces. Blinks enough for him to believe the tracks down her cheeks aren't just water. "I can't do anything, not with these locks on. Just... Please."
Against the fear thumping in his chest, or maybe that's still his wild heart, he drops her arms. "You won't bend?"
Looking up at him, her smile is slow to come but no less earnest. "How would I? No, I won't bend. But I am going to show you an ancient watertribe custom."
His eyes narrow. "I'm not jumping in the ocean."
"Neither am I. I'd drown." She shakes the manacles again. "But I don't need my arms to skim."
"Skim?" The word is new to him, aside from the step in his uncle's tea making he needs to take if the leaves turn out to be older than he realised, releasing a nasty film into the brew he needs to remove with a sieve.
Water has started to soak through his off-duty robes, darkening the red silk of his vest and sticking his black shirt to his back. Tucking his pants into the shin coverings spares them a few seconds before the water seeps in. His slippers do nothing to keep him from being soaked through, and she wants to extend their time out in this?
Answer comes in the form of her dashing across the deck, water flying in her wake, splashing up into his eyes as she skips and slides across the slippery iron. Waves fan her, nothing to do with waterbending, arcing water flying out behind her as she crashes into the opposite rail, laughing raucously. Madness, he would think if he hadn't seen her laugh before, seen her crow as she gloats over beating him in Pai Sho or out-smarting him in Two Lies and a Truth.
Throwing her sopping hair off her face, Katara slips and slides back to her feet. "Try it! It's fun!"
"It's frivolous." The water's starting to make him grumpy.
"Give it a go, Sunshine." It's a challenge, leaving out her mocking lilt. Like if he doesn't do it, he proves he's the little prince she loves to make fun of.
Attempting to copy her skip sends his foot out from under him. In a half-split, half knee-slide he crashes not only into the rail but Katara's legs, bringing her down on top of him. "This is ridiculous!" he snaps as she laughs, throwing her off his shoulders. Slick hands fail to grip the rail and he flops back down. Katara howls with laughter, leans against him "Skimming is stupid! Rain is horrible! Fun is ridiculous, there's no tactical significance to this! It's a waste of time!"
"You're absurd," Katara hollers, kicking water all over the place. Her dark hair floats in the shallow water. The rain came so quickly they didn't have time to open the deck vents, so she has to close one submerged eye when she turns her head to look at him. "Wanna try it again?"
~ ~ ~
Please let me know your thoughts and feedback because I would love to know if I'm doing a good job!! it would be greatly appreciated!! Reading all your wonderful comments keeps me writing as I plough on for Book Two.
Speaking of! I have a basic outline for where I want Book Two to go, but that doesn't really start until Ba Sing Se. So, let me know what you guys would like to see! The input of my readers is incredibly valuable to me!
Kudos always welcome, likes, dislikes, comments and complaints. Let me know what you guys think because I love reading them and finding out about you guys!