Borealis: A Zutara Story | By : jaded_priceless Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality Views: 33965 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 4 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, any historical figures or events, or easily recognizable persons, places or things. I make no profit from this work of fanfiction |
Chapter 148
After breakfast Zuko and Katara went to the spa room. She had missed the multi-directional shower heads more than she’d missed Zuko but she would never tell him that. She still couldn’t believe how fragile he was. Zuko had shown her where to apply pressure to make him crack but she had to be careful not to show him any more of her weak points now that she knew his. The past month was the first time in her life she had ever been truly alone and the lack of human contact had been jarring. She still felt off kilter and desperate for human contact now that she was back among people.
On top of that her moon cycle was coming soon. That time of the month always made her mentally and physically vulnerable. When Zuko had been inside of her and they were kissing she almost felt herself enjoying it. Not just the physical aspect of having something firm between her legs, which she attributed to the hormonal flux of her menses, but also the warmth and reassurance that came with being held and told she was loved. Shunning was not always a permanent punishment in the Southern Water Tribe; the length of time depended heavily on the infraction. It was easy to tell those who’d re-emerged from the shadow world and were reinstated into the tribe. They clung to the people they loved and anyone who showed them a bit of kindness with a passionate fierceness.
She had to harden her heart and steel her mind to ensure she didn’t become one of those people. She couldn’t let the crippling fear of truly being sent away to some unfamiliar place and never seeing her family again make her hang on to Zuko. She couldn’t let the life debt she owed him overshadow her anger or the guilt of seeing his skin and scabs laying on the shower floor and the blood running his body from where he scrubbed his flesh raw after she’d called him a monster for killing a woman to protect her.
After thoroughly washing herself again, Katara dried off and stepped from behind the screens. Zuko was waiting for her. The black robe and his damp shaggy hair made him look like a large overgrown puppy. A smile stretched across his face when he saw her. His eyes lit up like that factory they’d blown up in Jang Hui and Katara found herself smiling as he approached her. Why did couldn’t he have just remained an asshole? Why did he have to show her the cute side of his personality? Why did he have to remind her that hiding inside the evil Fire Nation Prince was an actual person named Zuko?
She hated him. She hated him for not being more like his father and his sister. She hated him for making her laugh. She hated him for every time he said he loved her. She hated him for not speaking to her for almost a month and letting her think she’d been sold. She hated him for not talking to her. She hated him for making her miss him; for making her realize she could be in worse situations. She hated him for being so ashamed he hid his face from her. She hated him for crying. She hated him for making her feel guilty for yelling at him. She hated him for being willing to kill to protect her.
Most of all she hated him for making her want to put the screens up, push him down and fuck him in the shower. She hated him as he wrapped her arms around his body and wriggled their robes loose. She hated him more as he called her name while she rode him hard and fast. The hatred grew with every single mind shattering orgasms leading up to the one that made her scream his name as he came inside her; that one broke her. Katara clutched her chest, curled into a ball and sobbed as she lay on the floor, “I can’t do this Zuko. I can’t do this anymore.”
Zuko drew his legs to his chest and formed a larger upright ball beside her. The shower spray did a poor job hiding his tears. When they both finished crying they cleaned themselves up, put on their robes and went back to bed. They curled up together like human safety blankets and drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
After lunch when she was gripping Zuko’s hips, and gasping his name as they moved together she realized she didn’t hate Zuko nearly as much as she hated herself.
Her hatred dissipated when he took her to see Sokka and Aang.
They both were clean, injury free and starting to regain their lost weight. Her brother hugged her and apologized. So did Aang. They also thought they would never see her other again. Zuko allowed her to spend several hours in the brig with them while he pretended to groom Korhi. When Mu came to get Sokka, Zuko took his rhino on deck so she could clean up after Appa with her Waterbending. The time he would have spent cleaning they spent catching up and apologizing.
Zuko disappeared while Katara accompanied Mu, Sokka and Korhi downstairs. He reappeared to shove heaping plates of food at them before opening the door to Aang’s cell and loosening the heaviest chains. Katara told them what Zuko had done as they were eating. Sokka was angry but Aang praised him. In one of his wise Avatar moments he said, “You two would still be fighting if you hadn’t been forced to deal with that sudden unexpected loss. We should thank Zuko for putting our family back together.”
That night when Zuko removed his head from between her legs and climbed on top of her, inside of her; she remembered Aang’s words and Lady Sakura’s teachings. Zuko should be thanked for bringing their family back together. Instead of bringing her hips to meet his, she clenched her inner muscles and moved in the opposite direction when he asked her to move for him. It took a few tries to establish a rhythm but when they did Katara understood why the older woman called it a desperation tactic.
Gripping him tightly and pulling away when he pushed in was more like teasing foreplay even though he was inside of her. Zuko was desperate for contact when he grabbed her hips and displayed his enthusiasm. He hammered her with swift deep strokes that sent her inner walls on a cascading ripple that left her as limp as an overcooked noodle. After collapsing on top of her Zuko immediately drifted off to sleep.
She couldn’t, she was too busy sobbing. She barely registered Zuko’s eyes opening, him rolling them sideways, or his fingers gently brushing away her tears.
Sokka tried to remember how it felt when he didn’t see his sister for a month; how it felt to believe she was dead. Azula had him brought to the empty room beside Zuko’s and he heard the two of them for lack of a better term - rutting. It disgusted and angered him that those pleading caterwauls were coming from his baby sister. He’d called her a bitch in heat. Whatever she and Zuko were doing made her sound like two of them. The noise reached a crescendo and things grew quiet.
Then he heard her. She was crying and asking for forgiveness. He thought Zuko had done something to hurt her then he discerned her wailings. They were in Water Tribe.
“I’m sorry Mom. I’m sorry Dad. I’m sorry Gran-Gran. You taught me better, but I’m such a slut. I don’t want to like it. I don’t like it. I don’t want him on top of me. I don’t want him inside me. But I don’t want it to hurt. This way it doesn’t hurt. I’m sorry. I’m such a disgrace. I’m sorry for shaming you. I know I can never come back home. I tried going to La but he wouldn’t have me. Yue stopped me and La sent me back. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. If I had never been born the Fire Nation wouldn’t have attacked, all those people wouldn’t have died, Mom wouldn’t have said she was the Waterbender to protect me. She’d still be alive. They’d all be alive. Sokka was right. I’m a whore. It’s my fault. I killed them.”
Sokka was chi blocked and gagged. He couldn’t stop either of their tears no matter how bad he wanted to. He told her she should have died in place of their mother. When Zuko had thrown him back in his cell he had told him the Fire Nation only raided the Southern Water Tribe to look for Waterbenders. Sokka had put two and two together but still refused to speak to her. He knew Katara had watched the man attack their mother. He did not know their Mom gave her life to protect her. He couldn’t imagine how guilty she felt for that or know that she still blamed herself for all of their deaths.
Dad or Gran-Gran didn’t believe her when she said the other kids picked on her. He’d heard some of them saying the Fire Nation never would have come if it weren’t for her but he’d never spoken of what he’d heard, in many ways he’d felt the same way. Dad and Gran-Gran dismissed it thinking she only wanted to stay inside with the things Mom had left behind. They wanted her to keep a little piece of her childhood so they gave her the betrothal necklace saying Mom would always be with her then forced her outside to play with her tormentors.
He heard a deeper voice. Zuko was saying something to comfort her even though he couldn’t understand what she saying, “I won’t abandon you Katara. No matter what happens I’ll be here.”
When they were children he’d only taken up for her when the teasing had her on the verge of tears. His best friend, Taruk, who’d lost both parents in the raid, had been the one to come to his sister’s rescue every time. He’d been the one to tell her if someone makes you feel bad hit them until you felt better. Katara had always had a temper but he’d been the first to tell him it was okay to use it. Amnak and Bato had been the ones to see what Gran-Gran and Dad hadn’t. They reinforced Taruk’s advice to defend herself by channeling her anger into the warrior lessons.
“It’s okay to cry Katara. No matter what happens I’ll still love you and I’ll always be here.”
Even now, after all they’d been through he still left it up to another person to comfort his sister. When they thought she was dead Azula had told Ty Lee to get rid of her medical records but she had took to her room and let him read what all Zuko had done to her. The medical notes had been detailed and thorough including how she was progressing and the results of last exams he’d done of her. Her chances of getting pregnant had improved from extremely rare to unlikely after her menstrual cycle but her chances of carrying a healthy child to term were still dismal. He never imagined it was possible for penile penetration to cause those types of injuries a place designed to accommodate it.
He had accused his baby sister of rolling over for Zuko. He’d accused her of rolling over and not fighting when he’d done so after the second time he was raped. It seemed Zuko had her at least once daily but she fought for weeks. He felt a sense of pride every time he saw the marks and bruises on Zuko’s face and neck. He silently encouraged her efforts each time he heard her fighting and screaming. He didn’t even manage to fight for one hour but he’d been furious to see that Zuko didn’t have any battle scars.
He’d called her slut in anger and she believed him. She believed him to the point she’d ingested poison. He didn’t believe the “accidental poisoning” notation. Medicine was a precious commodity in the Southern Water Tribe, especially after the raid. All of the children were taught how to identify herbs and their proper usage. He could barely distinguish what to take to soak your feet in to cure foot fungus from what to drink for a headache but Katara excelled at it. She knew exactly what she was taking.
She’d fought and had been so severely injured she’d lost the ability to have children but now she was feeling guilty because she’d found a way to limit the damage to her body by not fighting. He assumed because she lacked the black eyes, split lips, and bruises that she wasn’t hurting. He should have known better. From the first day their paths crossed Zuko gave as good as he got. Whenever they ran into each other he, Aang or Katara if not all three were left some type of ache, pain, bump, bruise, scratch or burn. It was easy to forget the soreness a battle with Zuko left them with after Katara learned she was a healer.
His baby sister was a healer; Katara’s face was never marred. She never had any visible scars. He never stopped to consider if she’d taken steps to hide them or if damage lurked in places he’d never see as her brother. His baby sister was in so much pain that she’d tried to kill herself but he never took a moment’s time to stop and ask if she was injured. She was a woman. Unlike him she was born to receive a man into her body so assumed that he was the only one being damaged.
“I’ll always be here for you Katara. I promise I’ll never leave your side.”
Sokka swallowed more bile, as Zuko continued to comfort his sister. Katara was a girl. There was no need for her to get the lesson on the upper head and lower head. She didn’t know about accidental stimulation, physiological reaction, and biologic responses. She was blaming herself because the nerve endings in her genitals automatically transmitted the signal to her brain something was happening down there to stimulate them and she felt guilty because her body was reacting.
Katara’s sobs were starting to muffle and he could hear the bed creaking again. These weren’t the same frenzied sounds from earlier these were softer as if someone were moving. The creaking stopped but he could still hear Zuko’s voice breaking just as clearly as before, “It will be okay, Katara. I’ll find a way to make it okay. I promise I’ll find a way to make it okay”
Katara was female. Her body was made to hold a male’s. Zuko was a male. He told her to have Zuko’s bastard. He told her she was Fire Nation leftovers and no man would want her or her child. He’d never fathomed she’d already conceived one and lost it. Katara cried for weeks when the pet penguin she had for three hours waddled off to rejoin its companions. He didn’t want to think how badly losing a child was affecting her. If Zuko’s words were affecting her…
“I promise I’ll find a way to fix things so you won’t be sad anymore but until then it’s okay to cry. I’ll be here to wipe away your tears and hold you until you feel like smiling again.”
Growing up he had been taught that if a man wants his woman’s love and devotion he cherished her. During his travels he’d seen differently and learned differently, especially at the North Pole. The women of the Northern Water Tribe were kind, meek and worshipped their abusive husbands. No Southern Water Tribe man would dare speak to their wives and daughters so harshly and no Southern Water Tribe woman would allow it. Even Yue deferred to Hahn the few times he’d chanced upon the two of them.
When he commented on it he’d been told a singular thing whether he was in the Earth Kingdom or Northern Water Tribe – women didn’t know what they wanted. It was up to a man to show them. The opening between their legs was proof a woman could not survive without a man’s input.
Chong said it best when they emerged from Oma and Shu’s burial cave, “Just a minute ago when we were lost in the the darkness you were grumbling, complaining hating me and my music. Now that we’re outside in the sunshine you’re hugging me and loving my songs. Are you sure you aren’t a woman? Difficult creatures, even my Lily. They don’t know what it truly means to be happy with a person unless they can compare it with an experience of misery then they go all lovey-dovey syrupy sweet on them. That sounds like a good song.
Women are difficult creatures…”
Difficult – a perfect word to describe Katara.
It grew quiet next door and he felt the ropes binding him being yanked. He slammed into the floor then roughly hoisted to his feet and pulled into the hallway. He kept his head turned staring at the door to Zuko’s room hoping his boy crazy sister had enough sense in her upper head not to let the female equivalent of a lower head get the best of her; not to let her guilt and the things he’s said get to her; not to let Zuko’s quiet words of encouragement during a weak moment make her forget he was the enemy and they were prisoners.
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