A/N: So sorry to all my Kataang followers. I PROMISE I HAVEN'T GONE ALL ZUTARIAN ON YOU and you can totally just ignore this :), but nevertheless this needed to be done and I hope everyone who enjoys this pairing will also LOVE this story ;)

Katara • 15°F

It was so cold that I could see my own breath fog as I exhale, but that was all I saw; aside from the mist and the whiteness of the snow, and their teeth digging deep into my skin, tearing me apart. I don't know why I didn't fight them, and why I didn't scream when I could have. I don't know why I didn't cry nor beg for them to stop, despite knowing that they would not understand. I just lay there completely still, awaiting death as I become prepared for it. All my fear faded into calm; all my unshed tears evaporated into peaceful thoughts of my upcoming slumber, and darkness began to take my mind. I felt disoriented and lost, and yet, I was still aware; wide awake and looking into the end. They shifted my body from one side to the other and I didn't resist.

I felt the frost and snow on my skin, and my fists clenched together in the impracticable task to keep my shivering body warm. I met his eyes; yellow and gold and hazel all at once, and I felt at peace again. I kept his stare, not wanting him to look away. He didn't. He looked at me for endless moments but he did not join the others in my slaughter; he seemed rather disturbed and sympathetic, as if he understood. He seemed unwilling to participate in killing me. I could not bring myself to understand him. It was too feelingly, too lucidly…too human. I rested my gaze on him still, as darkness and cold took over where warmth used to be and I felt myself falling. I silently begged him to catch me, to save me from the inevitable, but even if he could understand - even if I was able to tell him - he would not please my wishes. I began to reconcile myself with the truth - the truth in which I no longer existed - and then yellow eyes met blue - the sun: the warmth, met the ocean: the cold - and the heavy bodies were no longer pressing against mine; no longer was I unable to breathe. They seemed surprised - alarmed even - but they didn't protest. They let him come to me, to comfort me.

He placed his face near mine - his own still stained with my blood - and looked into my eyes as if he were telling me something. He stroked my cheek, my chest, my hair, my neck, leaving a bloody path on my skin, and once again, I was taken over by darkness and cold - this time to be awakened in the world of warmth and safety.

Zuko • 15°F

I watched as they tore the girl's body apart, eating her alive. I was unable to look away yet I could not keep my eyes on the scene before me; the bloody mess that was made of her tiny body. It was too cold for me to think, to feel anything but the cold; yet I felt sympathy and remorse and fear. I feared they would steal away her life and I would only watch as they did so. I feared she would not forgive me if I let that happen, but I remained silent still, unable to stop them and unwilling to join them.

As seconds began to stretch into seemingly endless minutes, and the cold started becoming unbearable for me, I started thinking about how she must feel. How does someone lie so still while they take away her life? I thought to confront the others, demand that they let her go. I wanted to shout at them that it wasn't right, but even if I was able to - even if the cold hadn't forestalled me from speaking - they would have had no savvy for me or for her. They would have probably said that what was necessary wasn't always right, but still I could not find a justification for their acts.

Not that I wanted to.

The cold was bitter and I felt myself shivering, my teeth collapsed together in the chatter. I could smell her - her odour was captured in my nose; the dirt that her skin was covered in, her tangled, messy hair, but mostly I smelled her blood. That was the scent that my animalistic drives kept searching for – that is what I yearned for, but I did not want to give in to my exigency - I did not want to bring her to her death, and I could no longer stand to watch them do it. I growled loudly and all the faces turned in the same direction. Recognizing the authoritative look in my eyes, they backed away from the girl and estranged from the disarray they had made of her. I approached her slowly, not wanting to frighten her more. She didn't respond and for a second I feared she was already dead.

But then I met her eyes; blue and so cold yet so warm and alive. She smelled alive, too. I forced myself to come closer. She didn't move. She kept her stare on me so I watched her as well. I was intrigued by the amount of her placidity. I put my face to hers, slowly, and pressed it against her cheek, her chest, her hair, her neck as if putting soft kisses where I knew it hurt. I was fascinated by her already, and I felt weird, to say the least, but even as I left her seemingly lifeless body, I kept her glassy gaze.

FIVE YEARS LATER

Katara • 38°F

I was never one to believe in fortuitousness. I figured that everything happened for a reason – the reason of why things actually happened was beyond me. I couldn't apprise why certain things had happened in my childhood – memories that haunted my dreams, were yet the most beautiful lullabies. I still see him sometimes, always in the cold while the ground was covered in the deep snow and the temperatures were low and freezing. He was never here while it was warm. I couldn't grasp the pattern of it, but I kept watching, waiting, anticipating, until – each winter – he would return.

My yellow-eyed wolf.

He watched me; his eyes always containing something more, something that, I knew, was beyond the animal that he was, and he would come each time the snow fell upon Caldera City. He would watch from the edge of the forest. Watching, waiting, anticipating. He would never be the one to come; he would never leave the shelter that the woods provided. That task rested upon my shoulders. I would always step carefully towards him: one arm extended, one palm up, eyes lowered and hidden behind my thick lashes. I was always cautious – never too pushy yet never too acquiescent, either – and careful not to scare him away, but before I would near him completely, before I could even blink, he would disappear in the undergrowth and I would be left in the falling snow, alone yet again.

He would never come alone, though he seemed to be the only one paying any mind to me. The others were there simply to watch him, to warn him if he went too far, but that would never happen. Among all of them, I couldn't figure out which one was the leader. All of them, a whole pack of wolves, would near the edge of the forest, but they would only remain by the borderline, their thickly-furred features hidden in the tree's branchy shadows. One wolf, though, would always remain behind, as if hiding his presence. His fur was as white as the snow he lies on, his eyes were somewhat crocked and empty at most times, his dull and derelict body whispered of a diseased and a faded mind. Still, I would never see a connection in the seasons – in the warm and the cold – for they always remained wolves in my mind.

Only wolves.

…

"You know you're acting silly, right?" I laughed at my mother's expression. She stood behind the kitchen counter in all her usual beauty: her long brown hair braided and placed in a soft bun on the base of her head, her full lips were shifted in a deep frown, her cheek and neck, and a good part of the loose locks that managed their way out of the braid, were stained with paint. My mom was a painter who lived for such stains.

"No, Katara." Her voice was a little stricter than she intended, I suppose. "I don't want you near those woods anymore. You know very well what had happened," she warned.

Actually, I don't know exactly what happened. No one does. There were many guesses, but I believed none were true. The truth, however, was that the information found its way to our family gradually and at a very slow pace. My mother, though she spent most of her time at home painting, was not the biggest fan of news, especially bad ones, and she had done a fair job in avoiding and ignoring them. My father, as opposed to her, was not one to spend too much time in the house. He was more of an 'adventure-kind of guy' as he had put it, so he did not pay much attention to the news, either. My brother Sokka and I heard more than one theory in the school's hallways. There were actually so many theories that I lost count.

But one thing was for certain; Ty Lee Asai was dead and her body was yet to be found in the darkened frost of the woods. She was not the kind of girl I would normally associate with, to be honest. She was bratty and full of herself – as if she thought the entire world orbited around her. She was quite popular, though, but most people either envied her for her beauty or loathed her for her sassy attitude. Only after her death was the public opinion transformed into something unseen, and only after her death was she proclaimed a saint and was talked about with utmost respect and adoring.

Although the theories of her supposed death were many, each suppressing the others, one thing has spread among everyone and no one could deny that it was a problem any longer: fear of the wolves.

I, for one, have always found the wolves to be peaceful creatures. I had never thought of them as a threat to anyone, despite the fact that I had attested their wrath myself. My mother has always said that they are no threat to humans, in the years in which she had failed to remember my incident with them. At first she had claimed that my attack was only a one-time thing, that there was no way it would ever happen again, but the recent events have brought back to surface long-forgotten and unwanted memories - memories my family had buried too deep inside to remember.

"I'm serious, Katara," she said firmly. "Do not go near those woods again. Are we clear?" I nodded only to please her, inwardly thinking that there was no way she would keep me away from my wolf. My mother looked at the watch that was wound around her wrist and nodded to herself. "Alright, I have to go. I have a lunch appointment." She didn't even bother looking at me. She was too busy going through her purse. "Your father will be home late so don't wait up, okay?" I nodded once again, and let my mother place a kiss to my forehead.

She left through the front door, leaving a cold draft behind. I stood there, unable to comprehend that she would go out in such a disastrous state, and yet, I let it slide out of my mind and turned slowly to go upstairs into my room–the only place in the entire house where I had a little peace of mind. I could hear my brother's conversation from the other room, so I started searching for ways to tune it out. When all else failed, I returned into the quiet of the living room.

Looking outside the window, I saw the snow falling to the ground in thick flakes. I watched as it whirled around in the wind, until I could no longer concentrate on it. That's when I heard it: a loud thump.

Confused and, frankly, a little frightened, I neared the door slowly. I knew all too well that behind the glassy surface of the door there was freedom. The door led to the familiar path I had taken for years into the backyard overlooking the forest. That was where I felt most alive. It was also where I was almost killed some years ago. I pushed the door open with trembling hands, only half-aware of what I was doing, afraid of what I would discover.

I finally stepped outside into the cold, and I immediately wished I was someplace else – anywhere, for that matter. There, lying on my front porch was a boy I had never seen before. The falling snow was covering his naked body, but my eyes still met more than I wished for. I observed him carefully; half-expecting he would jump up and attack me. His back was wounded badly and, though I couldn't be certain, though I wanted to believe otherwise, it looked as though he was shot. All I was able to do was to release a sharp gasp, and then he lifted his head, slowly, and looked at me.

I met his eyes; yellow and gold and hazel all at once, so familiar and comforting yet so unknown. "Help me," he managed to breathe before drifting into unconsciousness.

A/N2: So that's that for the first chapter. If I get feedback on this story I'll probably update faster, but I'm working on my othr stories as well so if you wanna see more of this (and get to the Zutara ;)) favorite, follow and

review review review :D