characters: katara, sokka, zuko.
etc: i have no consistency, lmao.

…

xi. every week, i'd pray for amnesia
of learning about the past
…

The sun drips its energy into Zuko the moment it begins to crest on the horizon, so he finds himself brimming with heat despite teetering on the brink of sleep deprivation. Katara had wandered back to their room sometime in the middle of their fourth round of Pai Sho, when Zuko had captured her Avatar tile and forced it back to the origin point otherwise, he'd attempt to engage in another round. The night had been full of silence, with the occasional whisper of checkmate or clarification of rules.

And him, pretending he hadn't noticed her eyes on him, not even once.

He hopes the morning will be more kind to him.

Outside, the air is thick with moisture but the wind sifts through the trees, a cool reprieve from the already oppressive atmosphere. As much discomfort as he can sense of Katara and Sokka, finally being in the Fire Nation puts some internal part of Zuko at peace with himself. Loyalty to his homeland had blinded him to the horrors of war—then he had been exiled away from it and it remained out of his mind.

But Katara and Sokka are perfect examples of what the spoils of war could truly be worth; he is a perfect example of the lengths to which his mighty nation would go in order to retain their power.

Zuko sighs, with an absent touch of his fingertips to the bottom of his scar. It feels so foreign to his sun-kissed hands, the hardened ridges down to the soft spaces in the valleys between. Three years seems so long, but he is still not used to the dulled sensation of his face at times, still not used to the disfiguration of his skin. Telling Katara about his scar had been a vulnerable moment for him, and she'd razed her way through the conversation with a recklessness that left Zuko feeling as if she'd taken something away from him, instead of him freeing some deep dark secret about himself.

"Should I leave you alone, His Royal Sulkiness?"

The scowl twists across Zuko's lips and he pulls his hand back down to his side. Sokka is almost a welcome distraction now that the sun has peaked over the skyline, and he stretches his arms in such a way that Zuko thinks he may be trying to punch him in the face and get away with it.

Ducking, Zuko bites down into a harsher scowl to mask him grin, and fails. "It's too early for me to beat you at anything, Sokka."

"Man," Sokka huffs, "you firebenders sure are cocky. Can't a guy just tease his friends in peace?"

Sokka has been throwing that word around so often between the two of them—friends—and Zuko has a hard time reacting to it. Being banished on the precipice of adolescence and spending the rest of his time away at sea with grown men had left him nearly incapable of socialization. But there was something so easy about talking to Sokka, whether it was about himself or weapons or girls or games.

Zuko likes being friends with Sokka, is the conclusion he comes to.

"Your sister found her way to bed?" He asks, the words more stilted than he intends. If Sokka notices, he doesn't speak on it.

"Yeah. The moon makes it hard for her to sleep, so she stays up at nights. It's just one of those Katara things," he adds, as if this is some grand clarification to Zuko. He files this information away for the time being.

Something must be on his mind, or Zuko's face must emote more than he thinks, because Sokka's face suddenly crumples into a frown. The sight of it causes his stomach to lurch in paranoia, and before he can ask him what he's done, Sokka's hand is an inch away from his face.

No, an inch away from his scar.

"Does it hurt?"

Zuko would slap Sokka's hand away if it hadn't been preceded by the stern face and gentle question, so he simply shakes his head dumbly. "It's been years," he mumbles, and Sokka pulls his hand away, as if he'd thought about touching the crumpled skin, "it doesn't really feel like anything, not anymore."

He watches the line of Sokka's brow fold in deep thought, and it's almost as if the words are buffering behind his lips, because he opens his mouth to speak and nothing comes out. Zuko considers letting their conversation fall back into the usual banter, and his heart thanks him for it too soon.

"How?" Sokka is able to mouth and quickly look away shortly after.

"It was a punishment." He feels his chest tighten; the word punishment seems so slight, as if Zuko had simply misinterpreted some law and received a fair reprimand. He'd campaigned for the lives of Fire Nation citizens at the cost of his own freedom, and yet he still called it punishment. "I spoke out of turn."

If Katara's reaction to learning the general story behind his scar seemed drastic, the sharp inhale from Sokka is a deep contrast. His features, always stretched with some form of melodrama, have calmed into a somber expression, one that Zuko senses is foreign to his new friend. Still, it does nothing but turn his stomach over with unease. Pity is the last thing he wants from Sokka, especially now that he has finally stumbled onto the finer points of friendship.

Luckily, Sokka doesn't say anything else, doesn't look at him with sad eyes. Zuko swallows the knot of lies in his throat—it's okay, it's been years, I don't even think about it anymore—and soaks himself in the relief he feels. It feels like one of those awkward moments that Sokka capitalizes on with unnecessary jokes or inappropriately timed offers for fun and games, but it is absent of that lighthearted ignorance.

Zuko is grateful.

The air feels a little less oppressive, now.

…

"That's dangerous," the softness in her voice startles him, "and you're bleeding." Zuko stumbles in place and Sokka's sword falls into the grass between them, piercing the soil. Above them, the sun is glaring down onto them, and Zuko swipes the back of his hand across his forehead. His hair curls at the edges, sweat sticking the dark strands together. Narrowing her gaze, Katara steps towards the two of them, her hands spread out beside her hips.

Sokka tips his head back cavalierly, "We're just sparring. Some of us prefer to practice in order to stay sharp."

Katara clicks her tongue against her teeth in an admonishing mimicry of a scoff, but she approaches him with her hands extended. Zuko briefly registers the water in her palms before they touch his bare shoulders, and watches with wide eyes when her fingers come back tinged with blood and sweat. But it's all he can observe before she turns him away from her to get a better look at the wound.

Zuko scowls. "When did you hit me?"

"Don't blame me!" Sokka cries, affronted. "You let your guard down!"

This time, he can't quite form his teeth around the laugh to stop it in his throat; it bubbles past his lips and sounds low in the air, a deep chuckle. Katara's fingers are cool against his shoulder blade and his mind collects the words he can't seem to pull together. She's healing it, he thinks at the sensation of her cool touch and the healing water pouring into his skin. For a split second, he imagines what it must feel like underneath her careful prowess before it's sealed up. The thought fades away before he can put a name to the fire it makes him feel, and Zuko turns to her just as she steps away with her head down.

"Hey." Something flashes in her eyes and it is because Zuko has clasped her wrist with such a swiftness that even he doesn't realize it right away, with a pressure inside of her pulse line that feels too comfortable under his fingertips. He doesn't acknowledge the familiar hold, though. Instead, he lets go of her with an apologetic smile. "Thank you."

"I'm a healer," she says instinctively, and it sounds more as if it is aimed to herself than to him, "it's what I do. In any case, I came out here to see what our next move is."

Right. He feels slightly humiliated by the idea that he and Sokka have been making light of the real reason they're in the middle of the woods outside of an inn in a remote Fire Nation city in the first place. As if sparring and playing Pai Sho was just a vacation, and the three of them would return refreshed and relaxed.

Zuko clears his throat. "Most of the current roster of the Southern Raiders are stationed at Whaletail Island, but I have it on better intel that most of the senior members have retired and are living in the center of the village now. It's just—" The words catch and he can't quite pull them out fast enough. Both of their eyes are set on his, and the fierceness in their gaze locks him down. It's the only moment that it strikes him how much Sokka and Katara are similar, because they hurt in the same way that draws them towards anger.

"Just what?" Sokka presses on.

"There are at least a dozen men from the Southern Raiders troupe that visited the Southern Water Tribe." This time, he meets Katara's eyes, an ocean pressing at the edge of her lashes. "Will you recognize him, when you see him?"

…

Zuko fights with the idea that he might've been looking for her at midnight when he stumbles across her with his Pai Sho board, in the same spot as the previous night. Her hair is knotted in a curly bun, and her elbows are pressed into the table as she thinks between each move of the tile. When he sits down opposite her, she doesn't give any indication of being aware that he is nearby.

Except, Katara resets all of the pieces to the place they belong, and simply waits. Waits for him to make the first move, waits for him to speak. A well of patience from the water-girl whom hates him.

It only takes three turns for Zuko to measure her improvement, and it is such a scalar force that reminds him of his own trendline, of his childhood. While the other kids played, Zuko spent his time doing advanced firebending drills and practicing with his weapons and studying his calligraphy. If he wasn't going to be blessed enough to be the lucky one, he was going to forge his way with a new virtue of perseverance.

"It's all I see," Katara says in a low husk, and moves a glimmering red tile to the close end of Zuko's playing field. "His face. His eyes, and the way he smelled like ash. Sometimes I don't even remember what my mother looks like but I could find him with just the sound of his voice alone."

He is silent. It is the right thing to do, so he tips a green tile against her red, and watches her lips twist into a thoughtful frown. Katara clips a blue tile into check against his Avatar tile, and continues to look at the predicament of her fire tile with a concentration that seems removed from their game.

"It wasn't your fault, you know." Zuko catches the bitter part of himself willing to utter waterbender at her scornfully; he has long since buried the part of himself that is angry with Katara long enough to talk to her. And it feels much more like a knife, knowing that the source of her pride is also her greatest downfall. "Your mother wanted to protect you. You know, deep down, that there was no other choice if she had to choose between herself and you."

Katara braces her hands on the edges of the table and digs her fingernails into the splintering wood. "I hate myself for it. I hate myself more than I hate him."

Zuko slides his lotus towards the center of the board and contemplates a response before watching her set to work. "I know the feeling. But you can't lose sight of the fact that someone loved you so much that they sacrificed their life for you. It's not something that anyone is capable of doing lightly."

"Is that what happened to your mother?" Her eyes are glowing, and it startles Zuko so quickly that he doesn't even notice that she's cornered his other Avatar tile and forced it back to its starting point. The moonlight makes her face softer than normal, and her words lay down all of the armor that she holds.

In the middle of the night, Katara looks vulnerable, and beautiful.

"In a way." Zuko takes a shuddering breath, moves a tile innocently into an adjacent space. "She had to choose between my life and someone else's life. I wasn't even fully awake when she'd left, but I don't know if I could recognize her if I ever saw her again. I don't know if she could recognize me if she ever saw me again."

Neither of them speak afterwards. Katara's movements are slower, filled with more grandeur with each turn passing. But Zuko doesn't know what to make of this new confession between the two of them. His mind has a difficult time twisting this sad, beautiful girl away from the image of the scornful, mocking one who'd reduced his greatest fault down to a terrible firebending accident.

Zuko moves his lotus into the center of the board, and Katara loses.

...

notes: i rode the wave of the last chapter all the way into the end of this one, which is why they're sorta similar. sorry for any mistakes. also, i'm considering moving to archive of our own permanently, which means no updates here. still thinking about it, so you'll have at least one more update here.