Chapter Text
She hates her betrothed.
Truly.
He’s arrogant.
Cold.
Dismissive.
His expressions are like stone. She can never tell what he’s thinking save for what may be thinly veiled disdain that dips his lips downwards into a near permanent scowl.
He’d barely said two words to her after the ceremony where he’d burned the press of his lips against hers like it was nothing, and then stared out into the crowd of adoring Fire Nation dignitaries for appraisal.
His golden eyes had left hers immediately. And so had the press of his fingers against her hand.
Quickly.
Cleanly.
Because this was political, after all.
But it’s been two months now.
Months.
And all she could think about was the moment when she’d watched his long dark tresses waver and sway in a long curtain behind his back as he left her lost and aimless during their “honeymoon” on Ember Island because he’d had some Fire Nation “matters” to attend to.
They’d barely spoken on the bumpy and slightly tenuous carriage ride over, and even less so when it was time to leave her before the first night had even started.
And then he’d practically never spoken to her again. Only when necessary.
Only when it was something diplomacy, administration or trade-related.
And especially this past week, he was like a ghost in the corridors.
Always busy.
Always moving.
The whispers of his scent lingered nearby like a mockery.
Because she knew he existed, he orbited the palace with a presence that demanded and held attention.
But just never around her.
He was always the last to come to bed and the first to rise “with the sun.”
That had been something he’d told her, she remembered.
From before.
She’d known the Fire Lord as a child.
She’d remembered him– when he was just Zuko back then– because, how could she not.
He was next in line for the throne after Fire Lord Iroh had passed with no direct successors.
All of the nations knew that he was next.
The only first born son in the family after his father Ozai had been jailed for publicly burning his own son during an Agni Kai.
It’s why they started him early.
He’d frequently visit the Southern Water Tribe where they were still rebuilding from the past war.
She’d been a just small child back then, she hadn’t even known she could water bend yet. And he was older than her.
By almost two decades.
Her brother Sokka was closer in age to Zuko. It’s why they got along so well.
And Katara had wanted ‘in’ on their little boy’s club back then.
She had been annoying. Bratty. Talkative. Nosy.
And Zuko had been annoyed.
Even back then. He’d been a sullen, skulking, young adult. At least around her, from her fuzzy child-hood memory. At the very least, she remembered he’d been around her long enough to mimic and mock her too spritely and child-like interest in being included in his and Sokka’s ‘too mature’ hunting activities.
Overall, she didn’t recall much from the times he’d visited, as they became less and less frequent as she got older.
She just remembers the look on his face when he’d settle golden eyes that were somehow cool in temperate on her.
She recalled the way his face sometimes twisted up.
Like he’d smelled something unpleasant. Like she was a nuisance. Something to pick off the pristine bottom of his highness’ shoe.
She remembered he’d sometimes call her ‘Princess’ with a mocking lilt. She hadn’t really understood why he’d smirk a bit to himself when he did so, and it was only later on when she’d discovered the reasoning in that the title as it meant for her in the South with her Father as the chieftain of the tribe, held much less political weight and significance than what it meant in the Caldera capital of the Fire Nation.
She used to ask Sokka how he could possibly like someone as ‘mean’ as Zuko, and Sokka had always waved her off, telling her that he ‘wasn’t like that’ once you got to know him.
Well she’d never even had the chance to.
Not even while actively married.
The bottom line was that the main thing she could recall from their past was the fact that he’d had such an issue with just about anyone he’d deemed beneath him, to the point where she still to this day could never understand how’d he’d been absolute best friends with Sokka.
Him and Sokka had been ‘pen pals’ throughout the years when Zuko’s visits stopped being so frequent. And it used to make Katara jealous over the fact that Sokka was able to maintain a friendship with someone from so far away.
She hadn’t had anyone her own age to play with back then.
Zuko’s younger sister Azula had never come to the South in those days. They’d send her to their sister tribe in the North with other Fire Nation Diplomats while Zuko stayed in the South.
There was less responsibility in the North. Less focus on rebuilding from past destruction, and more on monitoring the amping of military personnel for a hypothetical war that was never meant to happen ever again.
That was, until it almost did.
Which was where she came in.
The Water Tribes discovered something in the following years after the 100 Year War.
They weren’t receiving fairly proportioned reparations compared to the mighty and more affluent Earth Kingdom. The Northern Tribe threatened to attack the Fire Nation with the Ocean Spirit backing them, and the Fire Nation threatened both the North and the South in return.
So the Southern Tribe offered up their only ‘royalty’ to the newly crowned Fire Lord Zuko as a sign of ‘peace’.
It was an offering. A tenuous one at best, but a last hope for the Water tribes.
It was meant to be temporary. Only for them to keep up the appearance of unity until the last of the peace negotiations were signed.
She hadn’t just been offered as a wife after all. She was to serve as the Water Tribe representative, their diplomat and as Fire Lady for the Fire Nation.
It was the ultimate symbol of peace.
She worked restlessly day and night from the inside, negotiating peace deals on behalf of the Water Tribes, sitting in on counsel meetings, doing heaps of paperwork, doing public speeches, and making public appearances as Fire Lady when her betrothed was too busy conferring with other Nations.
She was exhausted from juggling everything all at once. She was essentially taxed with keeping ongoing peace between Water Tribes single handedly long enough for them to finally sign, which could even be years from now.
And through it all, Zuko barely acknowledged her.
She thinks he may have given a stiff nod of approval during one of her speeches during a counsel meeting once, but she had been so exhausted she couldn’t even tell the upside from the downside of that room.
And while she resented Zuko for offering her essentially no support whatsoever, emotional or otherwise, she hated him even more for being so evasive.
What had hurt her the most was the fact that he had barely even looked at her during their wedding day, which would’ve marked the first time she’d seen him in person in almost 10 years.
She had been dressed so ornately as well.
Her dress had clung to her new womanly figure, accentuating her recently developed curves and spilling in a large trail behind her. Her betrothal necklace was a combination of black Fire Nation space rock with golden etchings of a Water Tribe wave. Her makeup accentuated high cheekbones and naturally pink lips, the smokiness of the eyeshadow made the azure color of her eyes pop even further. Her detailed headpiece and veil sat on top of the bundle of chestnut waves that had been twisted into an intricate bun, the muscles of her calves flexed and tensed with each step in her high stilted heels.
It was the most beautiful she had ever felt in her life.
She had thought after all of that, it wouldn’t have been like when they were kids. He’d have no reason to look down on her anymore.
She was loath to admit it, but his attention and approval was something she was still subconsciously seeking even in the stretch of absence of him from her life.
And she had known with certainty that she’d capture both then.
At their wedding.
After all these years.
Finally.
…
Her breath had caught in her throat the moment she’d seen him at the altar.
It was the first time she’d been able to see him since her childhood, where their interactions lay back in the snowy tundra of the South Pole.
Since then, her mind used to recall and trace over slightly hazy memories of shaggy black hair and a slope of downturned lips and a lean frame.
To say that the specimen before her had grown into himself would be an understatement.
The Fire Lord may have been an ass, but he was also the most beautiful person she’d ever laid her eyes on.
His black hair, long and glossy, had fallen behind his shoulders in thick tendrils, two shorter strands curved perfectly to curl around his sculpted chin and sharp jaw. The rest of his mane was tied into a top knot with the Fire Nation crown holding it together. His broad chest donned a black robe with golden ornate designs that spiraled into the outline of what might have been a Dragon. His smooth porcelain skin was nearly flawless save for the stark red burn mark on the side of his face that did nothing but make the handsomeness of his features even more striking.
His face had always been so blemishless and smooth, but even now, his skin was completely free of any fine lines or wrinkles, to the point where he looked so much younger than his actual years. Most people would assume they were the same age. But she knows. She can see his years in the hardness of his expression now, and in the sure and confident way he carries himself. She can see it in how his frame had bulked outwards to become broad-shouldered and no longer lean, his high cheekbones more angular, his jaw sharper.
Either way, she had always thought he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen growing up. She’d thought she’d eventually grow out of that sentiment. But she hadn’t. Not even 13 years later.
As she made her way down the aisle, she still remembers feeling the hot press of his gaze on her at first, so brief she had almost thought she’d imagined it.
She remembers watching his eyes; large, slanted, piercing and sparkling gold as they began to flit around and look anywhere but her as she made her way closer and closer.
He’d avoided eye contact until it was time to lift her veil. And she would always remember that.
The fact that she hadn’t felt seen even on her own wedding day.
It’s why she doesn’t feel any pity or even alarm at first when Zuko’s second Masaru, tells her that Zuko has fallen ill with fever and has been taken to the hospital wing on the far end of the palace.
As far as she’d known Zuko, she’d never seen him get sick. Despite the countless and tireless nights he works as Fire Lord, he’d never taken a day off in the entirety of the two months she’d been here.
She enquires Masaru to keep up proper appearances as a ‘worried’ Fire Lord’s wife, but in reality, she’s secretly glad that he at least has an excuse as to why he’s been evading her more than usual this week.
She only grows suspicious when Masaru visibly pales at what she’d thought had been polite curiosity surrounding the illness.
“What, is it serious or something?”
Katara doesn’t want to think about what it could possibly mean for her, if her ass of a husband suddenly died.
Masaru splutters indignantly.
“No, of course not! Rest assured, this illness is not serious or deadly to the Fire Lord. However, it is a bit-rather…pelicular…”
“Peculiar…”
Sometimes it was like pulling teeth talking to Masaru.
“Yes! Well, it’s a bit hard to explain–perhaps the Fire Lord–”
“--As the Fire Lord’s wife, I demand you tell me what’s so peculiar about this illness this instant, Masaru.”
The frustration grows on her tongue the longer Masaru stands in the corridor wringing his own hands.
“Yes, of course, Lady Katara. Well you see, the Fire Lord is going through a bit of a…metamorphasis.”
Katara raises her eyebrow. Masaru clears his throat.
“You see, the Sozin bloodline has a rare genetic condition that runs within the men of the family. It appears every few generations. Where, when a Firebender royal is of age, at his ‘peak’ in power, and when the summer solstice is at its apex, the Firebender will develop some rare abilities in line with that of the original firebending masters.
“His bending will become stronger. His endurance will strengthen, his innate need for reproduc–”
“--I’m sorry, did you say, original firebending masters? As in, the dragons?”
“Yes, Lady Katara.”
Katara blinks. She can’t even begin to believe what she’s hearing currently.
“So let me get this straight. My husband is metamorphosing into a dragon, essentially? And none of you thought to tell me that something like this could happen before I was married off to him?”
“Well, no–”
“--And now I might have to shoulder even more diplomacy work in the wake of this ‘illness’ that will take however long–”
“--Well, Lady Katara, the metamorphosis is actually quite a short period–”
Katara stops her ranting up front.
“How long is it?”
“Seven days, Lady Katara. And then the Fire Lord should be good as…well, I suppose you’ll see.”
And what a long seven days it was.
She writes Sokka in the interim. She still thinks that what Masaru’s spouting is a completely ridiculous old wive’s tale that Zuko somehow created in order to avoid admitting that even someone as powerful as the Fire Lord can still get taken down by a common ailment.
Sokka had written back and tried to make light of the situation by telling her that once when they were younger, Zuko had told him that he’d felt ill after doing a singular good deed, and that this ‘illness’ was probably just more good old fashioned Fire Lord dramatics.
She’d learn only later how incredibly wrong Sokka had been.
…
Funnily enough, she doesn’t see him at all until a full two weeks later.
She’d been drowning in work and responsibilities. Essentially taking on the mantle as Zuko recovered and immediately went on a foreign trip to the Earth Kingdom to do additional trade negotiations in person.
When she does finally see him, it’s because she catches him. Accidentally.
In their room.
For the very first time since marrying him.
And she can’t help it. But her breath hitches in her throat again at the sight of him.
He’s sitting in his desk chair across from the large bed. His body almost looks too large for the space of both the desk and the chair, despite being hunched over.
Her eyes trace over him as he mutters over scrolls and catches on nimble fingers as he swipes a large and strong slender hand over his mouth. His hair is unkempt, yet much to her chagrin, the strands still fall nearly perfectly to frame his face.
“Zuko–” she breathes in surprise, her voice coming out airy and stilted, even though she hadn’t meant to say his name like that.
Even though she hadn’t meant to say anything.
She almost wants to kick herself when golden eyes flit up to her immediately. They pin her in place. And suddenly she’s at a loss for words.
She thinks this may be the first time she’s ever been in a room alone with him with both of them conscious.
And that singular thought throbs persistently, dauntingly in the back of her mind.
Zuko stands immediately. His frame pushes against the desk and his chair screeches loudly.
“Katara,” He says, in that low rasp she had almost stopped being familiar with.
His throat bobs as his legs instinctually carry him backwards. She can’t even focus on the fact that she’s never seen him so nervous before, because she’s too busy focusing on something else.
Because all her mind can latch onto is the fact that Sokka had been wrong.
Whatever this was, it was not mere Fire Lord dramatics.
He looked…taller somehow. His presence had always been intimidating and borderline cruel. He had a sort of blaséness about his authority, like he wouldn’t even have to lift a singular finger to put someone down.
But this was something different.
During her wedding day, the top of her head had come up to just above his chin. But now, she can see clearly that she is just barely eye-level with a somehow even broader chest.
He practically looms over her now.
His eyes look brighter too. Like they’re almost glowing in the dark of the warm lamp light blanketing the room.
And there’s this cackling of energy she can feel flowing in the blood of his veins and circling his Chi. It may have been a more muted version before, but this…she can almost sense that there’s something simmering and blistering under the surface of his own skin.
Something that felt almost…dangerous.
“Masaru was right.”
Katara’s throat forms strangely around the words in the silence, though she sounds more sure than she feels.
Zuko’s expression shutters for some reason at the mention, and the dimness of the light surrounding them casts a shadow over his angular face.
The stark imagery of this large man in the middle of their suddenly too small bedroom makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. He sticks out like a sore thumb, and the size difference between them is suddenly not ignorable.
However, she brushes off the slight warning chill that rakes down her spine.
Zuko may be apathetic and uncaring at times, but there’s no reason to believe that he would ever be a threat to her.
At least, he hasn't yet.
She swallows.
“You did go through the…transformation.”
She watches Zuko’s throat bob.
He gives a stiff nod.
She can almost see something akin to paranoia is raking through his stature, like she’s on the cusp of revealing something he doesn’t want revealed.
His body is still tense and eerily still, and she can’t help but think he sort of looks as if he’s readying himself to defend from an attack.
Or ready to attack himself.
She doesn’t know why, but the stillness in his body makes her take a step closer to him.
“So is that it? You’ve gone through the metamorphosis and now what? You become like the dragons?”
Zuko’s eyes are no longer watching hers, they’re now trained on the floor, fluttering closed as his nostrils flare from a steadying breath. Morbid curiosity rules out. She takes a step closer.
“Katara,” Zuko rasps again, this time, the tone of his voice is clear.
It’s not just her own body that senses it now.
It is a warning.
And that’s when she realizes that she was closer to him than she’d realized.
“You need to leave,” Zuko grits out, and then she thinks his eyes have finally lifted back to hers, but she can’t quite tell with the shadow still marring half his face.
Something tells her she should actually listen to him, but she can’t help but feel indignation.
“Excuse me?” Katara huffs incredulously.
Something in her snaps.
She’d been wanting to give him a peace of her mind ever since he’d pointedly ignored her on their wedding day and left her stranded on their honeymoon with barely an explanation.
And suddenly, all of the past feelings of loneliness, frustration, and emotional exhaustion she had been feeling because of him, comes rushing to the surface of her tongue.
She stomps into his space, swears she can see the flicker of gold glowing brighter then quickly dimming under the darkness of shadow, when she presses her finger hard into his chest.
“First, you can’t even look at me on our wedding day, you avoid me for months on end, and then, the second I want to inquire about some genetic “illness” that caused me to become the de facto Fire Lord in your place, you want me to leave and pretend nothing ever happened? Just be a good Fire Lady right? I don’t deserve any answers even when it costs me my time and efforts?”
Zuko’s jaw clenches shut, his nostrils still flaring as he for some reason refuses to answer right away.
“You do deserve answers,” Zuko rasps lowly, but almost like it’s paining him to get the words out.
Her eyes widen when he lets out another frustrated huff of air, and a small flame licks outwards and curls from his nostrils in a dragon’s breath.
It’s only then that she notices that Zuko’s hands are clenching so hard by his sides that the skin surrounding his knuckles have turned an ivory white.
Zuko lets out a low growl and then hunches his neck downwards to look her in the eye, and something about the body language of the gesture reminds her of the quick-tempered Zuko she remembers from her childhood.
Even still, something in her screams finally.
Finally, he will apologize for the way he’s been treating her all this time.
“He asked me to stay away from you.”
Katara stops up front. Because that was not what she’d been expecting him to say.
“What are you talking about?”
Zuko’s eyes pinch shut, his body tenses tightly again, like a wave of pain has shuddered through him, before they snap open.
Or at least, she thinks they do because she still can’t quite make out the outline of his irises when half his face is still marred by the darkness of the room.
“Sokka. I told him. Before the wedding. That I wouldn’t…that we’d never…I was always so much older and-and he’s my best friend,”
He finally stutters to a finish, almost weakly.
Katara’s eyes narrow.
“And what does my brother have to do with you avoiding me? Or not being able to even look at me?”
Because of course her brother would’ve had something to do with all the current cold animosity between them.
The wedding was always meant to be a show of peace, it was purely political. Katara knew that. And her brother had always been extremely over protective of her, but she didn’t buy that Sokka would go as far as to tell Zuko to avoid her at all costs.
She watches Zuko’s lips twist, and she can’t help but startle at the fact that she’s never quite seen the expression that’s crossed his face before.
He was always such an impassive or scowling stone of a person, but now his expression bleeds plainly especially when half marred by a darkening shadow.
He looks angry.
Angrier than she’s ever seen him before.
“You don’t understand. It wasn’t about that. I had to avoid you. I had to. I knew that if I looked at all–if I kept looking, I wouldn’t be able to…”
Zuko pales a bit and his mouth suddenly clamps closed.
Katara’s brow furrows. She’s still not quite following what Zuko’s going on about, the implications are teetering within the wavering space between them.
Yet she can’t understand why he looks so shaken up, like he’s seen a ghost.
Like she’s already dead in front of him.
But some of the anger has drained out of her, instead replaced with an inkling of concern at the knots of stress bunching his shoulders.
“You wouldn’t be able to what, Zuko?”
She decides to dip her voice away from the anger fraying its edges.
She keeps the tone cajoling, non-threatening now. Because maybe, if she’s like this, delicately probing, she’ll finally get the answers she’s been looking for.
She looks up at him through her lashes, and Zuko swallows hard again. His Adam's apple bobs heavily in his throat.
He steps closer to her.
He stands oh so still right in front of her, and tilts his head even further downwards and now she finds herself craning her own neck in a feeble attempt to maintain what she thinks is eye contact despite his still half-shadowed face.
For some reason, she can only think of the fact that he smells like smoke and incense.
Even when his voice slinks into a hoarse whisper.
“I wouldn’t be able to control myself.”
He inches closer again, maybe subconsciously.
And then, his full face finally emerges from underneath the half shadow.
She gasps, unbidden.
And that’s when she realizes why she hadn’t been able to see the glow of his eyes beforehand, even through the darkness.
Because the irises were barely visible at all.
They were nearly impossible thin rings of yellow surrounding pupils that are completely and utterly blown.
The black of them is just a rich, neverending sea of darkness. It’s almost hypnotizing to look at. And she can feel herself sinking the longer she stares.
She tries to snap herself out of the distraction, but then backs herself straight into a new one.
Because now she finally knows what he’s talking about.
And–oh.
Oh.
That was what he’d meant?
That was why Sokka had asked him to stay away?
The longer she thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Zuko was always his friend and not Katara’s. In Sokka’s mind, Zuko was not someone who could ever possibly actually want his little sister. Especially not in the midst of a political ploy. And for Sokka, Katara was probably the same.
That was probably another reason why he’d asked Zuko to abstain, why he probably never even expected Zuko to not want to abstain to begin with. Katara was always so much younger than them. She had been the annoying, bratty kid sister, nothing more.
Zuko was marrying her out of mere temporary obligation, not to take advantage of the situation.
The plan was always to go their separate ways the moment the peace treaty between the tribes was signed.
The marriage was always meant to be short-lived between them from its inception.
Not something real.
Or with teeth.
And yet, despite knowing all of this, something about the vindication, the thought of him admitting to feeling the same unnamed and suppressed feeling she’d tried so hard to bury for years of her life because of him, makes it come rushing through her body all at once.
The feeling settles hotly in her stomach, slinks lower still, and then throbs.
It was the mindnumbing, consuming, desperate want.
What Sokka had failed to consider was the fact that she didn’t care that any of it was political, or temporary.
And apparently, neither did Zuko.
She’d wanted him like no other, for as long as she could remember.
And here he had been, consumed with that same want, but unlike her, he’d been trying to be good.
For her brother.
She decides then and there that that ended tonight.
She doesn’t think twice before throwing herself onto the Fire Lord.