zutara week 2012 | day 7 | seasons

She loves Fire Nation seasons.

After growing up on an iceberg, waking up to a bleak grey sky and a world of white every morning, Katara holds a deep appreciation for the yellow sunrise and the fire-sky at sunset. Her eyes spend too much time staring at the pinks of the Royal Garden's cherry blossoms, the greens of the low mountains on the islands, the browns of the turtleducks' shells.

The Water Tribes were white and blue and violet. There, she had one season, and it was white and blue and violet. It was violent. Icy blizzards buried villages and she had healed too many frostbite victims after too many cold nights.

The Fire Nation is black and red and gold. So much of the country is so gold.

Gran-Gran once had a gold necklace. It was old and abused and tarnished, and Katara once assumed that it was what gold was supposed to look like.

She was wrong.

Gold is warm to the heart and cool to the touch; bright in the darkness but dim enough as not to strain her eyes. Gold is the Palace Garden's ember-lilies in the spring; it's midday sun reflecting off of the turtleduck pond in the summer; it's dry leaves under her slippers in the fall.

In the Fire Nation's hot, dry winters, gold is Zuko's eyes.

Warm to the heart.

Cool to the touch.

Not all that bright in the darkness but alight enough that she can always find him.

In her Fire Nation winters with Zuko, she doesn't have to wrap herself up in a parka and hide away inside to stay safe. In the absence of the South Pole's dry, cold air, her skin doesn't chap and dull; it soaks up the humid air and bakes golden in the sun. Instead of melting into the colors surrounding them, her blue eyes stand out in reluctant contrast and–

"Your fascination with Fire Nation weather never ceases to amaze me."

She smiles as his arms wrap around her in the summer thunderstorm.