Epilogue: The Painted Lady & the Blue Spirit I

The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit fade almost to legend in the wake of the war. The world is too preoccupied with healing and peace to worry over wartime vigilantes. No new rumours surface, not in the tundra where the princess of fire paces her icy cell, not in the deserts of the Earth Kingdom, or the islands of the Fire Nation.

Not until they're needed.

The first time is during a conflict between the Avatar and the Firelord in the colonial city of Yu Dao. The Painted Lady appears and breaks up a fight between the two sides. After that, the Blue Spirit is seen at her side, though not nearly as frequently as during the war. When loyalists make a grab for the throne, attack the Firelady and Princess Izumi, the Painted Lady's justice is the sharpest blade.

In return, the young Firelord makes her the patron spirit of the royal family.

And the people of the Fire Nation? Worship spreads through the islands. The Painted Lady can be seen in every temple and shrine.

She becomes legend.

Epilogue: The Painted Lady & the Blue Spirit II

Her painted alter-ego runs nights alone more often than not these days. Katara has found serenity in those solitary hours under the moon's rule.

And occasionally, when she's in town, the Blue Spirit joins her again.

'You spend too much time behind your desk,' she teases her companion late one night. It's six years since the madness wrought by that comet, since Ozai's death took the goofy boy from the iceberg and made him into Avatar Aang, since her brother became an international dignitary, since the boy she loves became husband to another woman. He's still climbing the shingles towards her and its clear he's spent more of the last six years in administration rather than midnight brawls on rooftops.

'Not by choice,' he puffs from behind the mask.

Above them, the moon is full enough to burst. Katara swells with it, bends easily to pull him up beside her.

'Getting old, Firelord?' she whispers, grinning at the grimacing mask. 'Old enough to retire to our tea house?'

He doesn't reply; she doesn't blame him. The pain of what could have been sits between them; an itch unscratched for six long years.

'I'm thinking of following your example actually,' she continues quickly, turning away to rummage in her satchel. 'Sokka's threatening to arrange me a marriage if I don't come home for more than a month at a time.' She hands him the teapot and sets the two cups between them. 'I just get so restless in the South. I might take up teaching again for half the year. Travel the rest. I'm thinking of taking some of our benders to the Earth Kingdom and setting up a travelling hospital. What do you think?'

The Blue Spirit is watching her, unreadable as ever. 'The Fire Sages have asked me to persuade you to spend a few years teaching at the university. They want you and Uncle Iroh to help develop more dual-elemental moves.'

She blinks. A job offer was not the reply she expected. 'They asked for me?'

The Blue Spirit seems to be watching the moon. 'They offered the position, a four-year contract. I… I suggested you.'

'Here?' She takes the frothing teapot from him, her heart hammering. 'A waterbender living in the Fire Nation?'

'I think you'll find the Fire Nation's attitude towards the other nations has… changed since the end of the war,' her companion points out, tracing the edge of the tile beside him. 'Izumi could use a friend… Rumour has it the Firelord could, too.'

She nearly drops the tea leaves. Maybe the guilt will never leave her. Guilt over not coming quickly enough, of not doing enough. When the Firelady's health worsened that fateful night, the summer storms kept boats out of the harbour for a week, including the Southern canoe carrying a worried waterbender. Mai had never fully recovered from childbirth and the loyalist's attack had sped her decline. Within weeks Zuko and Princess Izumi had been cloaked in white while the Fire Sages set the slight figure alight. Katara has never quite forgiven herself for her aversion to the porcelain woman, or the uneasy mix of grief and relief when she'd received word of Mai's death.

Zuko had though. He'd forgiven her, he'd understood. He always does when it comes to her. You can't control the weather, Katara, as his daughter wept silent tears at his side.

She hands him the tea cup, holding her own between both palms. Closing her eyes, she stretches her senses beyond the liquid in the ceramic mugs, beyond the steady pulse of Zuko's blood, outwards, upwards, downwards… The full moon helps, but mostly it's the seed his suggestion plants in her: hope. To work with the Fire Nation, to develop bending forms that heal rather than harm, to make the element of power as fluid the oceans…

Epilogue: The Painted Lady & the Blue Spirit III

I think you'll find the Fire Nation's attitude towards the other nations has changed.

'Your uncle,' she says, sipping the ginseng. 'Has he accepted?'

'A part-time tenure.'

'So he can be between here and his teashop?'

'Exactly.'

She's been restless for years, ever since Aang struck Ozai down. Her tundra home is painfully, restlessly small after travelling the world. This could be something. This could be… This could be something big.

'I've had this idea,' she begins and the tea in her hands sloshes with her excitement. 'To use firebending to heal.' She meets his eyes, those of the mask at least, and winks. 'When I was struggling with the darker side of waterbending, a friend once told me to explore all sides of my bending.'

The Blue Spirit becomes Zuko with the twitch of a hand; he's watching her, burning. 'You'll stay?'

The full moons pulls at her. With a grin, she pushes back. 'I'll stay.'

Epilogue: Customs of the Fire Nation & the Water Tribe

Zuko finds them in Izumi's room.

'I like it like this,' his daughter is saying with the first lick of genuine joy since her mother's passing. She is turning her head before the mirror, first left, then right, and left again. 'Can you do those loopies Uncle Sokka was telling me about?'

The Firelord pauses. Uncle Sokka…

Katara is still in her gown, the one Zuko privately vowed to burn the seams of once the party was over, burn them away until he could peel it from her like a skin from its banana. She is smiling at Izumi, bending forward over the girl's shoulder to bring twin strands back behind her head in a distantly familiar style.

'Did your Uncle Sokka tell you why girls wear their hair like this?' she asks as she twists the strands back into the long braid of silken hair.

'Because it is Water Tribe tradition for young girls who aren't yet of marrying age to pin back their hair. Loose hair is for women who haven't yet chosen their husbands.' Zuko's chest swells with pride at her knowledge, recited with an ease he'd never managed as a boy. He had no doubt she'd surpass him as Firelord when her time came. 'But what about married women?'

Katara pulls a pin from her own hair to secure the left loop in place. 'Women who are married or promised are free to wear their hair any way they like,' she explains, tugging on the end of Izumi's braid fondly.

'But you wear your hair different every day and you're not married.'

Zuko shifts in the doorway and Katara's blue eyes find his. 'No, I'm not.'

Izumi pulls her gown straight, lifting her chin to twist before the mirror. 'Mishi says that Papa is changing the law so he can marry you.'

Katara drops her gaze from Zuko's with a smile, tucking the girl's ruffled collar back into place. 'Miss Mishi is very observant. What do you think?'

Her face doesn't change, not a twitch. Not a flicker. 'I think I would like it,' she says levelly, glancing at Katara in the mirror, 'if you were my… if Papa married you.'

Katara folds then, to her knees, hugging the girl around her shoulders as they grin at one another's reflections; the child shyly, the woman kindly. 'I think I would like that, too.'

Zuko steps into the room as though they're bloodbending him forward, this girl, this woman. Izumi turns, startled. 'Papa!' She glances guiltily at Katara. 'We only left the party because Kuza and Fumi pulled my hair and ruined it. Master Katara was just…'

He sweeps her up, hugs her tighter than she likes now that she's six. 'You look like a Water Tribe warrior.'

She squirms free, straightening her silk gown with a light frown. 'The Southern Water Tribe warriors have wolf's tails, Papa. This is how waterbenders wear their hair.'

'Oh, I know,' he tells her lightly. 'I once met a fierce waterbending master from the South who nearly beat me every time I fought her.'

Katara scoffs and cuffs him on the arm. 'Nearly?'

'"You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun,"' he reminds her, smiling dryly.

Izumi wrinkles her nose. 'Didn't Master Katara beat you earlier this week? Mishi said she saw you sparring when she was changing my linens and that the Royal Guard would have to arrest Master Katara if she hurt you.'

Zuko sighs. 'Your maid says a lot of things, little spark. Try not to believe all of them.'

'But I did beat him that time,' Katara adds smugly, crouching by Izumi to thread the girl's braid over her shoulder. 'Are you ready to return to the party? The Fire Sages say the first storm of summer is coming tonight and Grampa Iroh will be looking for you.'

'I know! I know the way!' the girl exclaims and, in a fit of true childishness, she rushes out the door and down the hall.

'The princess has spoken,' Katara says with a slow smile. 'How did you sneak away?'

'I didn't.' He produces a carved mask from beneath his silken robes. 'The Firelord has retired under the duress of his uncle. I have business. In the city.'

A smile like the waxing moon lights Katara's face. 'I'll be five minutes,' she says in a hush while the whites of the Blue Spirit's mask gleam in the candlelight. 'I'm sure your uncle could make my excuses, too.'

Indeed, he could. And did.

The Painted Lady and Blue Spirit spend the night spilling the blood of criminals, drinking tea on the palace roof, and later— when the thunder started— they were in bed before Izumi stumbled through the doorway to snuggle down between them.

She doesn't question Katara's presence. She's too busy tucking herself in beneath the waterbender's arm and her father's side.

I really struggled to stop writing this (as the last few lengthy chapters indicate)! I had this whole bit about Katara and Izumi's growing relationship mirroring what was happening for our waterbender politically— the challenges and setbacks of becoming the Firelady, the progress and successes. How having a full-blooded Fire Nation Crown Princess made Zuko and Katara's union easier for their opponents to digest (but you better believe they had a bunch of adorable babies). How Katara and Iroh worked alongside the Fire Sages at the Caldera University (and delegates from Ba Sing Se University) to develop formal scrolls on glassbending, bloodbending, metalbending and a whole lot more. If you guys want a little more of this, don't despair. I'm not ly done with this AU, but I make no promises for follow up stories right now. I quite like how this ends (naw for blended families) but could probably be persuaded to give a few more scenes a go. You guys lemme know what you want! I would do anything for you, lovely readers!