Chapter Text
Katara - The End of the War Anniversy Festival, present day
The festival celebrating the end of the war was more lavish than it had the right to be, considering the nature of it’s hosts. Not that Katara held all the Fire Nation accountable for the devastation caused by the war, but everything has a limit. And hers was the fact that, if the Fire Lord was able to spend so much to receive in his court and city all the important people of the world, he must not be giving as much as he can for reparations.
Certainly the politicians and the rich weren’t the ones who needed to be fed, when the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes were still dealing with the consequences of the war.
“So you don’t like the fish baozi? I think they’re still way too spicy” said Sokka.
“What?” was he talking about? Oh, she has a little baozi half bitten on her hands “This? I’ts alright, I guess”
“Well, you’re making a face.” He came closer and whispered in her ears: “Perhaps you could look a little less like you would like to restart the war, y’know, sis?”
“Again, what?! Why would I…”
“You are staring at him, angrily. You aren’t eating or talking with me or the gang, and you haven’t even tried to sell one your saving the world pitches to any of the fucking rich people around here.”
“I have nothing to talk to any these people, we would be more useful putting our efforts with those who where actually hurt by the war!” Her voice carried the spite for those who, no matter their nation, thrived in the war, who watched and got rich while their people were massacred. And now they chitchatted with the Fire Nation elites, like old friends.
“Yeah, they suck. Still, would be nice to have some funding to rebuild dad’s fleet, to get back into trading with other nations. They may be assholes, but they’re rich assholes.” Sokka offered. And alright, she knew all that. Being the Avatar team didn’t actually pay what they needed to change the world. “Or, we could always just ask Zuko. He is just another rich asshole.” Sokka laughed.
If Katara wasn’t already in a bad mood, that would make sure she was truly pissed. Because he said it with no venom, he said it like he sometimes called her an asshole, or a bitch, or overbearing, it was pointed, but with no intention to harm. And she remembered it was because he actually is Zuko’s friend, he even called him best friend once! To add insult to injury, he wasn’t the only one.
At this very moment, Aang was across the patio talking with Zuko and some other dignitaries, with his arms around the Fire Lord’s shoulders, as he started doing last spring when he had a growth spurt. They couldn’t see the madness all around them. Zuko was as awkward as ever, but he was smiling, of course he was! He’s got everything. All the praise, all the money, everything he ever wanted.
Three years ago they were desperate, navigating in a world filled with death and destruction. Some of it caused directly by him. And now this? They won, they won over the Fire Nation! How come it all ends and not only he gets invited to the party, he is the host.
“I’ll leave the money talk to you, Sokka.” She said and strode away.
And as the baozi were the only alright thing in this hell of a party, she settled near the table, and hoped no one else came to bother her.
Zuko -The End of the War Anniversy Festival, present day
He hates parties. He actually hates social engagements as a whole. He is dressed from head to toe on his regalia, and yet he is still as awkward as a tea server in Ba Sing Se. Maybe less, because as Lee he was still angry, he would look down on the people he was meant to serve and tell himself he wanted to run away because his true place was above all of them. And now he had to face the fact that, all allong, maybe all he ever wanted was the run away part.
He wouldn’t have given this party in the first place if Aang hadn’t asked himself.
a few months before
“What you think about hosting a festival for the end of war in Caldera?” He had asked a few months ago, after a meeting.
“I don’t think anything at all about it, as I didn’t even consider this as an option.” A palatable and appropriate lie. Because he had considered it. And he had considered it a terrible idea, even if his council would love to propose it every now and then, saying that this could be a great opportunity for mending relations with the other Nations. First, it was probably in bad taste for the perpetrator of the war to host it. And second, because it seemed like an easy way to make a party night even worst: to plan it for months in advance.
“Well, I think it you should do it.” Sometimes, when the Avatar said he should do something, he felt as if it was the Universe itself giving an order. This teenage boy held immense power over him, as he was first the hope of the world, then it’s saviour and all allong every single thing that Zuko knew was lacking within himself. So he often obeyed the kid in the matters of state and reparations, the living embodiment of his guilt and destiny.
But not over this. He would fight this.
“That would be a terrible idea. The people outside of the Fire Nation ought to have control of how their freedom it’s celebrated. And we should, at the very least, not center ourselves in these matters. Even if the end of the war was good for my people, we should to take this time to consider our path forward towards redemption, and not to party”. He was mortified he even had to explain, but then, his guilt incarnate was a teenager. And he could relate to being a teenager with bad ideas.
“You are sooo boring….” Yeah, just a kid “But think about it, we cannot have the Fire Nation being in penitence forever, I want to make a world for us all. And for a hundred years the islands here were blocked and Caldera was a mystery for most people around the world. With a festival you could have more people here, more than a few that come now and then for these boooring meetings.” Okay, maybe he had some points. “And we could all do seeing each other as people a little more, and we could dance and have music..”
“Not happening”
And Zuko held his ground, for a brave and long week. But the Avatar would stay in Caldera for a couple weeks more, and he never quits talking. So, as the days passed, so did his resolve. Maybe this would be good for his country, even if he would have to face being the guy who threw a party for the anniversary of his country stopping the people killing.
Present day
Aang is capturing the attention of everyone around them, and Zuko would be grateful, if he wasn’t also captured by this enormous kid’s arms. When did he grow so much? And talking about him nonetheless.
“So, like I was saying, he appeared out of nowhere saying he would teach me how to firebend. But he was still like…” Aang finally let go of him, only to draw his hands towards his own chest and give the worse impression of Zuko has ever seem, sadly he seem plenty. “... Honour!”
Anyways, Zuko uses what little time he has to escape. He was hardly discreet, but he had been told his face isn’t the most approachable (ouch), and if he is quiet he might even look menacing enough to avoid overly friendly attempts to chat.
He walks through the empty gaps in crowd, knowing he always attracts eyes, but luckly, for now, no one tries talking. His aim is to get to the edges of the patio. He can’t just leave, but maybe if he gets out of the center, he could enjoy some peace and solituded.
Zuko stops in his tracks as he sees her.
She is standing close to a table, filled with finger foods and a few drinks. Katara is already looking at him when he sees her, and she doesn’t turn away after being noticed. No, she is nothing like him, afraid to be perceived. It was probably the wine he had, but today he doesn’t turn away immediately. He justifies to himself that it is an act of bravery. She is the only one who truly looks at him after all.
She, as always, only has anger for him in her eyes. And what a powerful force of nature she is, he wants nothing but to cower. But he feels conflicted.
All at once, he basks in her rightful anger, believes that he deserves it and wishes she would take her revenge, so that he could at least be free. Perhaps if she could take all that rage out on him, his atonement would be finished. Or if she could finally allow him to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness.
He also wants to defy, face and fight her, ask what else could he have done with what he had been given? Even if it was later than ideal, he did abandon everything for their cause, he pushed with them against his nation and his family and they won, he wasn’t too late. And all the gang had forgiven him somehow, and he wanted to demand to know how could he ever earn her forgiveness. Was it even possible? Should he even try?
At the end, seconds are all he can muster, he turns alway with the sad pang in his heart of a memory that, once, she didn’t look at him like that.
Katara
As Zuko turns away and disappears back into the crowd, seemingly forgetting what was that he came out for, she noticed Suki by her side. In complete Kyoshi Warrior style.
“I was going to try to get to the subject gently, but this was intense.”
“Suki, I didn’t see you…” Katara is startled, but still sees the ruse. “Sokka sent you here.”
“He doesn’t send me anywhere. But he did say you might need some girl talk.” She holds her fingers in mock quotations.
“Well, this isn’t a girly subject. I don’t know how you handle my brother.”
“He has his ups and downs. But I didn’t come here to gossip. I just though maybe this was something I could help with?”
Suki is perfect. Sometimes Katara doesn’t understand why she’d be with a brute like Sokka, but she is happy to have a sister.
“I just.. It feels like I’m the only one sane right now. This is crazy, right?” She gestures all around with her hands. “We are in the capitol of the Fire Nation, eating finger food paid by the Fire Lord, surrounded by fire nobility and earth politicians and merchants who barely scratched a nail in the Hundred Years War. Is this what we fought for?”
“Peace?” Katara wants to resent Suki for this, saying like it is so simple. “I know, it’s strange. The war was so long, I spent my life thinking I would only live to fight in it, probably die in it, and never see it finished. And the mingling is awkward, it’s worse today, with all the important people who think they are above it all. But I think it will be weird in the ‘open to the public’ days too, eating, drinking and talking with would be soldiers, maybe ones I might have fought, killed, where it not for Aang.”
“Yeah, it feels like I’m in a dream, and everyone around me has forgotten what happened, all the harm they did.”
“They? Or him?”
Katara just looks away.
“There where trials, and they will keep happening. It would be impossible to bring justice to every one who held power against us in this war, but the worst of them were dealt with. And maybe we need to look to the future, I think that stopping more harm from coming is better than punishment, don’t you?” Katara doesn’t have an answer. “And I don’t think you mean they as much as you mean him.”
“You wouldn’t understand, what he did to us was...”
“He burned down my village. People I cared about were hurt” And suddenly Suki sounds more intense, less the sage warrior. But Katara wouldn’t back down.
“And you act like you forgot what he put you through. One good deed and all is forgiven, what accountability does he take? Prancing around as if he isn’t as guilty as the generals he condemned.”
“I’ll never forget. But he is my friend, and I forgive him. I believe he has changed, and like I said, I don’t care for punishment. He did horrible things, but right now he is making sure to make the world a better place.”
Suki grabbed a baozi and moved to leave.
“I’m not saying you have to forgive him or to be buddies with him, but if you can’t give him a chance at being your friend, give him a chance at being the Fire Lord the world needs.” And she goes away, leaving Katara felling even more out of place.
At the Western Air Temple, two years ago
She knew he would come to her. He was predictable and dramatic like that. Of course his little public show earlier today wasn’t going to be enough, he wouldn’t be content apologising and expressing how sorry he was in front of the entire group. And he’d be correct, it was not enough. Nothing was ever going to be enough.
So Katara waits, sleep wouldn’t come easy with him here anyway. The rooms areclose together, so she heard him walking from room to room, some snippets of his talk with Sokka on the room next to hers. And then a knock on her door.
“What you want?” she asks, as if she didn’t already know. She opened the door but remained standing in his way.
“May I… Can we talk? In private?” he said.
She didn’t want him to get any closer, to allow him inside her space, but she also didn’t want any of the others hearing them. And from personal and very recent experience, she knew the rooms weren’t private enough.
She closed the door behind her, getting way too close to him, but he backed down fast enough. “Follow me.” She says.
They walk in silence into the temple, until she finally feels it is far enough.
“Again, what you want?”
He bows forward, hands tucked close to his body. This type of reverence isn’t common in the South, even if they might kneel in some situations. He is still standing, but there is some sort of… surrender in this pose. She saw this a handful of times in the Fire Nation, but now she notices what felt so off about it. To any bender this was a very vulnerable pose. His neck stuck out, arms and legs tightly locked. It would be so easy to strick him down.
“I need to tell you how sorry I am for everything. For hunting you all this time, for the war, for…” he hesitates. “For Ba Sing Se. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but… ”
She huffs.
“You really shouldn’t expect it. And I don’t need your apologies.”
Zuko moved back up, but kept facing the ground. Now he is back at being way taller than her, but his body language tells a different story.
“I’m..” He tries, but she interrupted him.
“What, you went from room to room, and everyone fell for your little speech about finding your true self, your destiny, making amends, and thought that I would fall for it a second time?”
He raises his head, and for the first time since he got here he looks her in the eyes. It actually makes her heart run a little faster. Like this he looks menacing, evil.
“Like I said, I don’t expect your forgiveness.” He sounds defeated, and that gives her a small sense of victory. Even if now he stands as the king he one day ought to be. “And I don’t expect you to even believe me when I say it, but I am sorry.”
“You’re right, I don’t believe you. You and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something, right now. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends right then and there. Permanently.”
Then she walked out, abandoning him in that dark corridor. Katara can’t help but feel a little off as she lays in her bed. Even if it felt good to put the prince in his place, it was not the same as when he fought back and she won. Her stomach revulsed at the idea that they will share space, that he is going to teach Aang, and that he looks so determined, and genuine and resigned to her hatred. She hates him more for it.
Though a small, weaker, part of her feels saddened, because he had been all of those things before. And yet they weren’t enough back then. So they wouldn’t be enough now.