Hidden

She can feel his eyes on her. She wants to talk to him, curl herself into his warmth, but when he calls her name she turns away instead.

Sleep

His heaving falls from ragged gasps and pants to gentle even breaths. Her water heals the fresh red lines from his arms, and her tears caress the white scars she is too late erase.

Confession

"I love you, Zuko."

She knows she deserves being left here alone in the middle of her guests.

Garden

It was meant to be a tour of the palace grounds, but when she gave him a nudge and stumbled at his return push, pulling him after her when she fell and all of a sudden found him pressed over her… She quickly learned there were other things she would rather be exploring.

Sadness

Even after sixty years of waking up to empty skies, her weathered cheeks still sag a little more each day under disappointment. She sighs her comforting lie to herself: southern climates just aren't a desirable destination for Fire Nation messenger hawks.

Quiet

The rustling of sleeping pelts has never seemed loud before. When she thinks she has beaten him at their game of stay-awakes, she breaks her own silence with wet gasps and the bereaved moans of stitches in a heart coming undone.

Melt

"Please, Katara, I need you!"

"I've got you, Zuko; I'm here."

Storm

Rain has never bothered her. It is the thunder that his body is protection from; the thunder that shakes both the ground beneath her feet and the fibres of her being.

Fight

She wants him to hurt and she wants him to get angry, she wants to see his eyes and fists flare and for him to throw something - Spirits, anything - at her. But mostly she just want him to hold her against his chest, tuck her head under his chin, and say, "You are real and I am real and I've got you, Katara; you're safe here."

Legend

Of course she picks up the one scroll that recounts the story of how the Painted Lady is forever indebted to her once-lover, the Blue Spirit. It means nothing, of course; she knows it is nothing more than fading ink on crumbling parchment trying to preserve culture (but destiny is a funny thing).

Touch

She hates the smell of tea, but she brews it because her recipes are the only ones he likes now that his uncle has passed. It isn't because of the silly butterflies she gets in her stomach when the teacup (prop) brings his hands to hers.

Frozen

On particularly bad nights, she will think of how his body stiffened when he saw her belly full with a kin that was not his. Her husband will always be confused to find her crying, and his chest will be so cold compared to what his was against her.

Candles

She doesn't have a problem with being stuck in a certain Fire Lord's palace, but the monsoon season also has a way of distancing her from her night sky, from her moon. She tries to smile when a pale hand gestures her to follow him, but when she steps into what he calls her "night room" she finds she doesn't have to try anymore.

Dynamic

"Maybe I should just stick to my water bending…" One look at his gritted expression and she knows she has no gift for the tsungi horn.

"No, no, you are good, just a little loud."

Treasure

She knows his love for her is gone when she sees the look he gives the tiny Crown Princess of the Fire Nation. He used to look at me like that, she thinks, walking away, rubbing her arms and trying - oh, Spirits, she's trying - not to hate a newborn who has done nothing but bring happiness to the only person who has ever mattered to her.

Switch

She is determined that if he could swap sides in the middle of the Hundred Years War, then she sure as hell can adjust from South Pole winters to Fire Nation summers. The Fire Lord's face is redder than the curtains that adorn his palace when he finds her skinny dipping in the turtleduck pond.

Vague

She storms away with a dramatic sweep of her hair against his (stupid/stupid/stupid/ugly/stupid/worthless/stupid/good-for-nothing/heart-breakingly-handsome-why-oh-why-did-he-do-this-to-me-I-love-him/stupid/stupid) sheepish face. Livid is an understatement, and vague is just a nice word for coward.

Pieces

"Iroh? I'm back! Sorry, I think I just left my… What's that you got there?"

"I think one of my customers today has left a little less hopeful than he came."

Shiver

She knows he hates her winters as much as she despises his summers. But his face is startlingly soft when framed with fur, and he has never looked more gentle or wonderful than now as he wears Sokka's old blues.

Ripple

His lips quirk, like dipping her toe into a glass lake. Finally she has shattered the surface and his mirth bubbles up from his throat to join hers in the air.

Disaster

Suki's make-up is far from waterproof, and the waterbender curses her mother for never being there to teach her how to touch-up tear-streaked face-gunk. Just her luck that he would show up in the wee minutes before the ceremony with a confession for a wedding gift.

Sea

He is unforgiving at the best of times, his temper knows no fathomed bottom, and never does he sit without his knee bobbing or his fingers drumming a tide. His eyes are a storm that threatens to drown the air from her lungs, and despite being a waterbender, she is powerless to his depths.

Reconciliation

She wants to be angry at him - La only knows how she'd love to throttle him, even just a little. But his gesture is endearing and instead she assaults him with kisses.

Blaze

Maybe it's a slight overreaction, but under Yue's monthly curse, she claims no responsibility for the egos she bruises… Or the genitalia she severs.

Shower

She had only wanted to wash her hair without being crushed beneath an avalanche of exotic shampoo bottles whenever she accidentally knocks a shelf.

Alas.

Flash

Sometimes she goes many days without thinking of it. But the very sound of the purple betrothal pendant rattling in the top drawer when she wrenches it out, seeking her comb of a morning, and her thoughts are dashed between slicing fragments of pale lips on dark skin.

Electric

This surprises her a little, though it is a pleasant shock and it make her think. Maybe, just maybe, fire and water aren't as opposite as we all make them out to be.

Soulmate

"Aang is my soulmate!" Her eyes are narrow under heavy brows, but so so broken; as though the ocean has been turned to glass and then thrown against a rocky cliff face.

"You were Aang's soulmate. But you and I both know that he was not yours, and he never was." His fingertips are hope around her wrists; but it is an old hope, as cold as her tears in the bitter arctic air.

So, yeah, sorry this is kinda... Gross and poorly written but I am sad and sick and full to the brim of Zutara (and all-'round plain Avatar in general) feels and I hope this is passable. Found an error? Tell me off by clicking that pretty "Review" button below, yeah? :)