I've always loved the whole Zutara pairing. I love Aang, but can't go wrong with what was actually supposed to be cannon, so I'm on the Zutara train all the way!

This story is a reposting/rewrite of a story I started in high school. And I mean like sophomore year of high school. I've needed a break from my original works, and reevaluating this story made me realize how much fun it could be to pick it up again, just to experiment. I'm in college now, but no promises that my writing skills are much to be admired. I struggled just like everyone else!

You'll notice things won't follow cannon. This surrounds the premise that Katara had feelings for Zuko before he was struck by Azula's lightning, and vise versa. They of course have no idea, but that's the fun in it! I'm taking some liberties with the original show and making things a bit more… well just more.

SOOOOO, without further ado, here is the new Water Kindled Fire.

Red

I do not own Last Airbender

Prologue: Lightning

The lighting split the air, coursing and alive like a snake spitting from Azula's fingers. Watching the firebender's wild eyes narrow on Katara held the waterbender in place. There was nowhere to run, nothing to stop it, not when her element would conduct the power and kill her if she tried.

She could only stand and watch the end shoot towards her in the form of hatred, the flicker of light reflecting the fear in her eyes.

The flash of lightning seemed to catch. Katara blinked at the body that suspended in midair before it plummeted to the ground, convulsing with shocks.

"Zuko!" she cried.

The initial shock tumbled through her body like a force of nature, and she fell at his side.

Her mind raced to find his wound, hearing his voice in her head.

"You need to take my place," he'd told her before Appa landed. He'd forced her gaze to his, determination set in his jaw, but terror stroking the iris of his eyes.

"I mean it, Katara. You're all I have. If I fall, finish the fight."

His words sent a calm through her veins, and her eyes locked with the mad Fire Lord.

The bending furry took all Katara had. Her soaring hands and muscles danced as if she had an autopilot. Her focus strained, her eyes taking too long to catch sight of Zuko's unmoving form. She had to see him twitch to know he still held on.

Azula eventually had the girl pinned behind the pillars beyond the storm grate.

A mistake.

Katara grinned and grabbed a chain hanging off the walls.

With one lift of her arms, they were frozen.

The chains chilled her fingers even without the ice. Katara tried to focus on the two fingers pointed at her brow but found crossing her eyes to be even more uncomfortable than being frozen in her own ice block. She let a rush of warm air out of her nostrils. The water became fluid that caressed her cheeks and flowed through her long hair. She didn't have time to relish in her element and she wrapped the chains around Azula's wrists, binding her to the grated prison.

With a graceful flick of her hands, the water fell.

The firebender screamed a mournful howl, a wolf separated from its pack, or a bender cornered.

Katara didn't linger any longer. The fight was finished.

She had won.

Before her mind could catch up to her actions, Katara was by Zuko's side, fingering the flesh around his wound, and snapping back as a last spark extinguished into his skin. Tears were hard to hold back. She summoned the water to enclose her hands and pressed some sort of comfort into his chest.

Healing any bender took knowing their element, understanding the role it took in the body or any one person. Familiar people were easier to fix, easier to navigate the plains of their bodies and minds.

Healing Aang and Sokka was nothing now, she'd done it so many times. But healing a firebender, even one she knew like she did Zuko, didn't come so easily to her. She had to fight a flame that danced in his body, catching and dancing with her element as an invader would toy with a village.

In a sense, healing a firebender reminded her of facing one.

She delved deep into his body, his veins, his organs, finding the damage and weaving his flesh back together. But it wasn't enough. His fire trickled down to embers she struggled to coax to life. Her water flowed to that fire and surrounded the flame, the healing willing it to grow until his breathing was deep with sleep, but still faint and labored. Even as her water rebuilt the fire into his soul, she could hear her conscious whispering warnings that this was not right.

She ignored that little voice. She would not let him die, and in her determination, she felt something new. A flame unlike any other flickered like the striking of flint catching kindling. In her mind's eye, she could see the difference in this fire, the wrongness of it being in his body.

She knew instantly that something else was wrong with him.

Katara panicked. Her eyes shot open to see him still unconscious, and she felt her hands run through her hair still coated in ash.

Her entire demeanor changed at that moment.

Her decision might have cost his life.

"Zuko?" she whispered firmly, almost defiantly.

She was welcomed by silence. Nothing, at all, and that was the moment she realized, how silent it really was. No more sounds of chains screeching in protest, or howls of anguish.

Her eyes flicked to the storm grates where the former Fire Lord had been. Her heart stilled when all she saw was a bubbling of molten chain sinking until it sizzled out of sight in the water below.

Azula was gone, and Katara had failed.