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The attack comes without warning — one moment, Zuko’s standing in the hallway with his chief administrator discussing the season’s crop yields, and the next, his knees are threatening to buckle beneath him as he’s ambushed from behind by something forceful and merciless and swathed in blue.
Little heed is paid to the way he’s been thrown off balance, his assailant not loosening her hold on him even as he pitches forwards under her momentum. It’s only thanks to years of honing his reflexes that he manages to catch himself before he ends up sprawled across the tiles.
His smile, on the other hand, refuses to be caught, spilling out onto his face with complete abandon as he straightens up under the weight that’s still fastened doggedly around his shoulders.
‘You’re early.’
‘Amazing how easy it is for a ship to make good time when there’s a master waterbender on board, isn’t it?’
‘It’s extremely unprofessional for a representative to announce themselves like this, you know. Very improper.’
A huff of air tickles the back of his neck and sends something spinning in his chest.
‘Propriety’s overrated. Gods, it’s so good to see you!’
‘I would say the same, but I haven’t actually seen you yet.’
Another huff that’s shaped more like a laugh, and then her grip on him is released and the warmth at his back recedes enough for him to turn, like a compass needle finding north, to face her.
Katara’s face is bright by the rays of mid-afternoon sun that beam in through the windows, her eyes a pole star of blue in the red-tiled sky of the palace. The months since he last saw her have brought a scattering of changes with them — her hair that bit longer, her shoulders held with the self-assurance of someone who’s been slowly shedding the weight of war — but everything about her is still so unmistakeably Katara, the essence of her so steeped and strong that he doesn’t think any measure of years could temper it.
‘You’re taller.’
Apparently Zuko’s not the only one who’s noticed the marks of time. He grins down at her.
‘You’re shorter.’
The rebuttal earns him a snort, a roll of her eyes, and he’s glad to see that that, at least, hasn’t changed.
‘Okay, Fire Lord, very funny.’ She lets the rest of her laughter out on a breath, her words turning sincere under the smile that lingers on her face. ‘Look, I know you weren’t expecting me until later today, and I don’t want to keep you from anything just now — if there’s someone who can show me where to go then I’ll get out of your hair and we can catch up later.’
Later. As if that’s a time that exists in his mind when she’s standing in front of him now. As if her presence doesn’t demand his attention with an immediacy that’s almost embarrassing.
‘Actually, since you’re here, how would you like to come along to a meeting with the council? We’re discussing the school reforms that were put in place last year — the curricular changes to our world history teachings, the exchange programme...’
Her face screws up in a show of refusal even as she lets him nudge her along the corridor in the direction of the reception hall.
‘Hm, a meeting headed by your Master of Education? The one who’s — and I quote — drier and more abrasive than a Si Wong sandstorm?’
‘I have no idea what you mean. I’m sure no one would ever dare say something so disrespectful about an important councilman.’
‘No, of course not. No one would ever write something like that in the letters they send their friends after a day of difficult meetings. No one with any sense of honour, at least.’
‘Absolutely. So you must be mistaken.’
‘I am so sorry, I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Tired after a long trip, I’m sure. I’ll forgive it this time.’
‘Spirits, your mercy is boundless.’
‘As the Si Wong itself, yes. Oh, and Katara?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It is good to see you.’
She laughs, clear and flowing, and knocks him with her shoulder.
‘Idiot.’
It’s never truly cold in the Fire Nation, she knows, but there’s a freshness in the air that almost brings a shiver as they leave the cover of the palace and wander out into the gardens.
‘I’m just saying, if anyone ever had implied that that man was less than dazzling, they’d have been more than justified,’ Katara presses, sheltering herself from the afternoon breeze with the sunlit warmth of Zuko’s answering chuckle.
‘You know, I think you might be right.’
‘I’m always right — you should know that by now.’
His only answer to that is a sharp poke to her side; it pulls a strangled kind of squeak from her throat and sends her twisting out of his reach as they walk.
The gardens are winding scarlet and golden, a rustling assortment of rainswept thickets caught mid-transformation as the year ekes out its last blooms of colour before winter falls. The sun bursts in sheets through the gaps between braches, speckling shadow and light across the leaves that blanket the ground and crackle under Katara’s feet like shards of flame.
She makes it her mission to gather up the full spectrum of hues that the gardens have to offer, stooping every few paces to reap russet and honey, jade and crimson from the bounty before her. As she goes, she stumbles across other unexpected gifts — a blooming camellia presents her with snow-white petals that remind her of home, and as she and Zuko start skirting the edge of the ponds she finds the year’s last lotuses waiting for her with an array of purples and blues.
‘Are you planning on taking the whole garden away with you?’
She turns from her place knelt by the water to look at Zuko, and the sight of him leaves her breath caught in her chest; he’s watching her from the path, and the expression on his face is open and gentle and sun-dappled and—
She wants to reach out and pluck it from the air between them, turn it over in her hands and stash it away in her pocket with the rest of the souvenirs that she’s collecting from this time with him.
‘Maybe. Piece by piece.’
Suddenly she’s painfully aware that this is the first time they’ve been alone since the arrival of Sozin’s Comet, since the cord holding them together drew so taut and strained that the boy before her was rent right down the middle and left with a scar to show for it. After that, everything happened in a rush of post-war activity —they were picked up and tossed around, dancing wildly across the currents in a frenzy of mid-summer gusts that carried them far and wide and always apart.
But now the winds are changing, mellowing, letting them drift back in each other’s direction as the sun sinks low in the sky and sets the ruddy ripeness of the world aflame. They walk on through the gardens, side by side, and Katara finds herself strangely tongue-tied, strangely shy in the face of the possibilities that lie open to them.
This isn’t like before. This isn’t quiet touches exchanged in the heady heat of the last days of war, or a promise made with no way of knowing whether or not they’d be able to follow through. They aren’t dabbling in the hazy world of the hypothetical now, instead finding themselves presented with the opportunity for something real and palpable and more, maybe more for the first time. Somewhere in the midst of the blushing leaves, the streaked sky, there’s a future that could actually, genuinely exist without the uncertainty of war turning the path unstable beneath their feet. It’s there, ready and waiting, and all at once Katara finds her head spinning in anticipation of the taking.
Piece by piece is good. It gives her the chance to catch her breath in the space between moments.
They walk.
His hand bumps against hers. Pulls away. Bumps again.
She breathes.
The ponds have always been Zuko’s favourite spot in the gardens. Most of the happy memories that he holds of his childhood took place around these waters — long, hot days spent paddling amongst the lotuses and watching the turtleducks with his mother, back before duty and honour reared their heads and blotted out the light. It’s still a place of refuge for him, a hidden hollow of stillness that hums and murmurs as the rest of the world goes about its raucous routines. When he’s here, real life is far away, at least for a time, and more often than not he finds himself lost in all the musings that the everyday just doesn’t have space for.
But not today.
Today, there is approximately one thing occupying his thoughts, and she’s walking alongside him with leaves in her pockets and threads of bright copper light shining in her hair.
He’ll tell her. Any minute now, he’ll tell her.
But at the moment there are more immediate issues to address.
‘Hey, look — berries!’
‘Wait, Katara, you shouldn’t—’
Too late. Katara’s face is already contorting, eyes widening and her hand flying to her mouth as the heat of the smokeberries hits the back of her throat.
‘Oh gods, what—’
She splutters, coughs, and he knows from unfortunate experience that it’s only getting worse.
‘What is that? Why is it— Spirits, why on earth does everything in this gods damned nation burn? Zuko.’
And he can’t help it. He tries, honestly, he does, but the laughter is heedless of his efforts as it spills out of him, sending him doubled over and struggling for breath as Katara glares in between bouts of coughing.
‘Hey, stop it! I’m in pain, here! Serious, serious pai—’
She cuts off with a choke, fanning desperately at her mouth with her hands. His stomach starts to hurt, and he’s laughing so hard that he barely even notices her shoving his shoulder in protest.
‘Zuko, cut it out. Keep going like that and I’ll make sure you end up in the pond. Don’t think I won’t just because you’re all big and important now.’
There’s no doubt in his mind that she means it, and he knows he’s gone way overboard, but calming down is an utterly, completely lost cause. It’s been years — eons — since he last laughed like this, so far back in the annals of his mind that he can’t even reach the memories of it anymore, and now... Now it’s as if that buried part of him has woken up, and it’s refusing to be silenced again.
That is, of course, until he’s jerked backwards as one of Katara’s water whips curls around his middle and pulls him, as promised, straight into the pond. He ends up sitting chest-deep in the shallows, just slightly stunned from the abruptness of the fall, and now Katara’s the one laughing as he sloshes around in silt and gets tangled in his sodden robes.
‘Yeah, yeah, very funny.’
But he’s smiling as he says it, even before she smirks at him from her nice, dry place on the pathway and dips into a deeply sarcastic bow.
‘Thought you could do with cooling off, Your Excellency.’
He scoffs, sending a splash her way from where he sits. The water halts in between them, sparkling in the early-evening sun and throwing streaks of rainbow through the air as the drops start to coalesce, coming together to form one rippling ball which promptly glides back towards him and releases right over his head.
‘Do you want to talk me through what you were expecting to achieve by splashing water at a waterbender?’
‘Element of surprise,’ Zuko grunts as he pushes himself up to a stand under the weight of his robes. ‘Are you going to fix this? Or do I have to do it myself and risk setting my tunic on fire?’
She snorts.
‘Well, as funny as that would be...’
As she helps pull him out of the pond, he feels himself becoming lighter again, the water draining out of his robes by her will so that he’s dry by the time he’s stood back on the path before her. The smirk hasn’t quite left her face as she gives him a quick glance up and down, and her eyes are glittering a challenge.
‘You know, this is really all your own fault. None of this would’ve happened if you weren’t growing cursed berries in your garden.’
‘They’re smokeberries. You have to press the seeds out of them first, that’s where all the heat is. Look—’
He demonstrates, pulling a smokeberry of the bush beside them and squeezing the fiery red seeds from inside it, making sure none are left behind before popping the sweet, spiced fruit into his mouth with a grin. Katara eyes him stubbornly, the hint of a laugh still dancing on her face as she shakes her head.
‘Zuko, my tongue is still on fire. If you think I’m going near another one of those things—’
But he’s already relieving another berry of its seeds. For a moment she looks as though she’s not going to budge, scowling obstinately up at him, but then she sighs and accepts his offering, inspecting it closely before meeting his eyes again.
‘You should take this as a testament to how much I trust you.’
‘A huge error in judgement on your part, generally speaking.’
Another narrow-eyed look shot in his direction, and then she’s taking a cautious bite from the berry. He watches her expression change, shifting from one of braced wariness to pleasant surprise, and she lets out a hum of concession before finishing off what’s left of the fruit.
‘Okay, you win — this is actually pretty good.’
‘Told you,’ he counters, but the impact falls short by the sudden strangling of his voice. Because now she’s sucking smokeberry juice off her hand, and he’s blindsided by the need to exercise every bit of self-control he possesses in order to keep his gaze averted instead of focussing in on her mouth.
Tell her. Tell her, you absolute—
‘Let’s keep walking, there’s a lot more to see.’
And he grabs her hand and practically drags her away along the path.
Thankfully, him acting like a moron seems to be something she’s used to — probably because he’s so prone to it when he’s around her — and all she does is laugh and tug him back a little to slow their pace down to a stroll again.
They meander on, mirror-top ponds to one side of them and rich, winding undergrowth to the other.
Neither of them mentions the fact that their fingers have caught and held, twining loosely together in a way that could almost be mistaken for accidental if it weren’t for how his thumb starts to rub back and forth across hers.
She doesn’t pull away, and the whole experience — the floating peace of the gardens, the clean, earthy smell of soil and bark, the feel of her hand in his — is almost too vivid, too vibrant. His heart is pounding in his chest, a relentless beating to make the surface of the water ripple and the leaves fly in flurries into the air, and he wonders if she can feel his pulse through his hand as they reach a bridge that will bring them to one of the garden’s many small, red-tiered temples.
Tell her.
Okay.
Here. Now. This is as good a place, as good a moment as he’s going to get.
‘The Fire Sages want me to marry.’
Gods, what kind of an opening line is that?
Katara tenses next to him.
‘What?’
‘They say that the security of the Fire Nation depends on it. They’ve been pressing me to secure a political engagement, strengthen our international standing.’
Silence for a moment, and then her voice comes strangely small, carefully measured.
‘I see.’ Her hand leaves his, her arms crossing as she pulls away to lean against the side of the bridge and stare out across the ponds. ‘I guess that makes sense. I overheard a couple of them talking about Jinglei of the Duan family, from down in the southern Earth Kingdom. They, um... They seem very taken with her.’
Zuko frowns, unsure why she's bringing the noblewoman up.
‘She has been mentioned.’
‘Well, by all accounts she sounds lovely. I’m sure she’d be a wonderful choice.’
‘Wait, what?’
All at once, he realises that they’re having two different conversations, that she doesn’t understand what he’s gearing up to say, and he curses himself for coming at this side-on.
‘No, you— She’s not the one that I— Katara. It’s you.’
That approach doesn’t seem to work either, if the panic that flashes across her face is any indication.
‘Zuko, that’s—’
‘No, no, wait, I didn’t mean that I think we should— Not right now, or— Or at all, necessarily, but—’
He groans in frustration as he tries to gather the thoughts that are flying around in his head.
Agni, you’ve really messed this up. Be clear, gods damn it.
‘I told them that marriage isn’t something I’m prepared to entertain at the moment. They didn’t like it, but eventually they accepted the idea of an official courtship instead. A kind of middle ground, I guess.’
‘Oh.’
Katara takes a breath, holds, blinks. Then she turns to face him properly, and he might be kidding himself but he thinks, he thinks that he can see the beginnings of a smile at her lips.
‘And... You’re asking me?’
He squeezes his fists tight, then forces them to relax, fingers unfurling as the whirling in his head settles to a singular, essential certainty.
‘I am. If you want.’
How is she meant to find the words to answer that?
Yes.
Gods, yes.
Are you seriously asking me if this is what I want right now? After everything? After everything that’s happened and the things we’ve been through and the way we are with each other, are you seriously asking me if—
All options.
All accurate, honest options.
But what comes out through a thick filter of feigned decorum is—
‘I suppose I could see my way to making that work, yes.’
Zuko makes a choked noise in the back of his throat that sounds halfway between a laugh and a wheeze.
‘The enthusiasm is very reassuring.’
She’s having trouble holding the smile off her face, now; her façade is cracking, but she gives it one last go before she falls apart completely.
‘Sorry, I thought this was meant to be a formal affair. A political engagement to strengthen international standing, and all that.’
‘Agni, would you just—’ He’s smiling, too, even as he pinches at the bridge of his nose and tries to steer them back towards something resembling sense. ‘The formal part is me writing to your father and asking his permission.’
‘What, as if I can’t make my own decisions about—’
‘I know, but it’s the only thing the Sages will accept.’
Their gazes catch, then, and she’s brought to an abrupt standstill by the sudden hesitancy in his face, the halting tentativeness when he speaks again.
‘So... you really have? You’ve— You’ve made the decision?’
Her heart swells ripe and weighty in her chest, bearing up in her throat; it hinders her words on their way out, turning her voice dusky purple in tandem with the evening sky.
‘No. No, I don’t think there’s one to be made, really. I mean, I don’t think I ever had a choice in the matter, you just— You’re not a decision, Zuko. You’re already a reality.’
As she talks, the space between them closes, dwindles as her voice does, until she’s barely managing a whisper and the warmth of his body is draped around her and his breath is on her lips. All that she can see — all that she wants to see — is the shine of his eyes, and everything that she’s been waiting for is right there...
But she can’t take it.
They’ve been here before, hovered on this threshold between iterations of Them, and under the burden of impending battle it felt like all she could do to keep from flinging herself off the edge and into him. Now, though, she wonders if the gravity of this moment might be too heavy for her to bear, if the wind whipping past her face as she plummets might steal her breath clear away.
Bizarre, really, to be so terrified of something she wants so much.
She falters, draws just short of where she’s practically aching to be.
And he makes a noise in the back of his throat that sounds kind of like coward.
And he pulls her in towards him.
And he finds her lips with his as she’s tipped into the most effortless fall she’s ever faced, cradled on a lilting breeze someplace easy and warm where breathing feels entirely optional. Zuko kisses her gentle, kisses her clear, kisses her with fingers brushing down the side of her neck and his heart beating hard against hers, and they dance together in the wind. When they ease themselves back into two parts again, he is glowing red, amber, yellow, as if he too is changing with the seasons, slipping into a time of rest and rebirth alongside the trees.
He’s golden. The boy before her is bold and bright and beautiful, and now she thinks that he might just be hers, too. So she doesn’t even try to hold back her laughter which, if she didn’t know better, she might almost describe as sounding giddy.
‘That wasn’t very official at all. I can’t imagine it was Fire Sage sanctioned.’
He narrows his eyes, scoffing lightly even as he draws her back in to kiss her again through her smile.
(Touch over voice, that’s how he’s choosing to speak. And he seems to be saying—)
He tastes like smokeberry.
(— shut up —)
His hands are in her hair.
(— and screw the Sages.)
She wraps her arms around his neck, pulls him closer.
And they keep floating, keep falling.