Tides of the Stars

Summary: Their eyes meet, and they know. This lifetime, as with all their other lifetimes, is not for them. Written for Zutara Month 2018, Day 16: "Love during War."

He is a merchant's son, and she is a fisherman's daughter. This is the first time they meet— alright, maybe not the first time, since their spirits could have traveled the world as Light and Dark before primordial beings were conceived, but this lifetime is the first they remember.

"I love you," he fumbles in her native tongue, a language where "love" also meant "expense", and she smiles sadly, because they both know love comes with a cost; she couldn't afford to leave, and he couldn't afford to stay.

"Promise me you'll return," she says instead, in his native tongue, a language where "leaving" also meant "death", and he kisses her sadly, because life and love hold no guarantees; he didn't know the tides, and she couldn't control them.

A week passed since their ship left their shores. Her father tells her the news with empty eyes.

Pirates, he says. Only driftwood left in the wreckage. No survivors.

"No," she says, a word their languages share, and she's swimming into the sea before anyone could stop her.

He is a scholar and she is a waterbending master. This is the second time they meet— although it might as well have been the first time, because they knew nothing of past lives and past heartaches, and this time, they still didn't know better.

"There's a serious lack of beginner's bending scrolls in the University," he explains in the common tongue, "I'm trying to catalogue the different katas, for children who don't have masters to teach them."

She smiles warmly at him, this strange man with golden eyes marked by fire. "That sounds wonderful. I'll be happy to help."

She tells him to meet her when the moon hangs high in the sky, and he finds her bathed in the moonlight.

"Do waterbenders never sleep?" He asks, shivering in his parka, inner flames stuttering.

"You rise with the sun," she says coyly, flowing into her first stance, "I rise with the moon."

But everything that rises must fall, and everything that comes must go.

The waterbender doesn't weep, for this is the way of her world: push and pull. Greetings and farewell.

The scholar leaves with nothing but a waterbending scroll and a piece of the waterbender's heart.

This is the third time they meet— but meeting for the third time didn't hold much meaning when you are both children.

They play hide and seek on the streets of Ba Sing Se, innocent of the war hovering on the horizon. They are too young to know what lies ahead, too young to grasp the meaning of the walls being erected, too young to understand why their fathers left and why their mothers wailed.

Too young, too young.

The skies burn red and flames rained down, and hide and seek quickly became escape and survive.

He covers her body from falling debris.

Her family finds her in the rubble of their neighborhood, clutching his mangled hand, no tears left to cry.

They are on opposite sides of the war. He arrives in a ship, as he had in half their other lives, but she feels fear the moment she sees him.

This is the fourth time they meet, and every spirit of their shared past shies away from the inevitable.

So she pushes him back but he hunts them down, again and again and again, until the inevitable seeps through the cracks.

"I thought you had changed!" Is it too much to ask you to stay?

"I have changed!" I never wanted to leave you.

Destiny is a funny thing, and what goes must return, what resists must surrender. Pull and push. Goodbye and hello.

He appears at their hideout and falls to his knees, begging for forgiveness. Her heart soars; then, her heart breaks.

Now the skies burn red once more, and his heart stutters beneath her fingers.

No, she thinks, in a language as old as time, no.

She is no longer a helpless little girl in this lifetime; she will be damned if he slips through her fingers.

"Thank you, Katara."

"I think I should be the one thanking you."

She watches as they place the crown on his head; he stands tall as he searches the crowd for her. Their eyes meet, and they know.

This lifetime, as with all their other lifetimes, is not for them.

Maybe someday, when there are no more wars to be fought and no duties to fulfill, they will finally have each other.

Maybe someday.

Someday came in the same lifetime.

This is the fifth time they meet, although it wasn't actually the fifth time, as they'd been friends all their lives, and they'd seen their friends come and go, seen their lovers live and leave, seen the world rebuilt by young hands untouched by war.

Now, they are too old, too old. Bones creaked and shoulders hunched, faces weathered and withered, hands trembling not from exhaustion or trepidation, but for simply being.

He holds her face in his hands, and her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles.

"I love you," he says, in a language that is more than the words uttered, and she sighs, not from sadness, but from peace.

"What do we do now?" she asks, hands splayed over his chest, holding the heart beneath the starburst scar.

He smiles warmly at her, this familiar woman with the ocean in her eyes.

"We live with the lifetime we are given."

A/N: I've been wanting to write a soulmate AU fic for some time, and this story had been in my documents for a while now. Thank Spirits for Zutara Month 2018 lol. It is my first time to write something like this, though, so please tell me what you think!