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The Penance Series	By : lala82 Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female > Katara/Zuko Views: 37023 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The next morning, Katara was aware of the worst feeling of aching soreness she’d ever experienced in her entire life, as she awoke in her own bed after dreaming she’d spent the night in another.
It hurt to stand. It hurt to sit. It hurt to lie down.
She took her time bathing in the warm water of a private bath area adjacent to her room, soaking herself for half an hour—until the water had lost most of its heat—and letting it flow gently over her legs and between her thighs. As the water moved according to her will it took on a slightly hazy gleam, and seemed to shimmer as it moved intimately over her tender flesh, soothing her muscles like a balm.
This was not an injury from a battle. Strangely, though, it feels that way.
The ambivalence of her own feelings startled her. There was a stab of guilt, of course; she was now no longer pure, as a young maiden, by Water Tribe standards. It had been her responsibility to maintain her virginity until marriage, as was custom. Hakoda would be beyond livid if he found out. Alongside it was the vague taste of regret that slid down her throat, and pooled tightly in her stomach.
Just who is providing penitence here; him or me?
But there was also at the same time an inexplicable feeling of euphoric triumph, at having discovered just how pleasurable such escapades actually were. The women’s knitting circle discussions, around the fire in the South Pole, had never gone into such delicious detail as to how said pleasures were to be achieved; only vague descriptions of kisses and caresses. Katara now felt as though she was in on the best-kept secret of womanhood—that sex was fun, that it was terrifying and exhilarating and tender all at once, but most of all that as a waterbender, she would be able to control conception and not have to worry about pregnancy until she was good and ready.
Of course, she realized, that’s the least of your worries right now. You just had sexual relations last night with the Royal Prince of the Fire Nation. She sank lower in the water, letting it cover her up to her nose.
A half-hour later, nowhere less confused but with her soreness eased, she exited the tub. She dressed and made her way into the center of the temple to begin breakfast once more for her makeshift family.

***
“Good morning, everyone,” she greeted the group, with a slightly forced cheerfulness; Haru, the Duke, and Teo looked up to bestow smiles in return. She went immediately to the cooking pot to begin the morning meal.
Toph turned her head in her direction as Katara approached. “Oh hi there, Sugar Queen,” she drawled casually, a wicked smile crossing her features, her usually vacant seafoam-colored eyes taking on a devious glint.
Katara was instantly on guard. “M-morning, Toph,” she replied uncertainly, busying herself with food preparation. “Did you, uh…sleep okay?”
“Actually,” came the reply, “it’s funny you should ask, Katara.” The waterbender gulped.
Toph continued gleefully, “I almost couldn’t sleep a wink last night. So many noises kept waking me up! It was almost as though there was some kind of loud, screeching, rough-and-tumble fight going on somewhere in the temple!” The other kids’ heads popped up in confusion and curiosity.
Katara laughed, a weak and nervous sound. “Heh heh, yeahhh…must have been some animals fighting, then?” she suggested, trying desperately to keep both a grimace and a blush from her face. Keep calm. She might be bluffing. It’s possible she might have heard something last night, but even if she did, she wouldn’t know who was doing it, or what it even was, right? She’s too young to know that kind of thing!
Then again, this was Toph she was talking about.
“If that’s true, I wonder what kind of animal it was?” Toph postulated, still smirking. She was obviously enjoying this immensely.
“Maybe it was a jackelope?” Teo suggested. “They’re native to this area, I think.”
“Maybe it was a mooselion trying to eat the jackelope!” the Duke suggested, his eyes bright with excitement. Toph kicked back against the stone wall, her hands behind her head, still grinning wickedly.
Even Haru was interested. “Maybe it was a—”
“OH LOOK! Breakfast is almost ready!” Katara crowed loudly, effectively silencing the discussion before it got out of hand. “Does anyone want to help me by picking some fresh ginger?” The distraction served its purpose and Toph chuckled to herself quietly, momentarily subdued.
Ten minutes later, Sokka—last to awaken—came in as Katara was dishing out the bowls of food. He yawned and stretched dramatically as he strolled into the middle of the room. “Mornin’,” he mumbled blearily to the group at large.
“Nice to see you’re finally up,” Katara quipped, to which her brother shrugged in response. She looked around briefly. “Has anyone seen Aang or Zuko? I can’t believe they’d both be sleeping in this late, as well.”
Toph laughed out loud at the suggestion. “Are you kidding? No one sleeps as late as Snoozles. They’re out practicing their firebending in the upper level of the temple.”
“Oh.” Katara was a bit surprised, as well as slightly miffed for some inexplicable reason that she didn’t want to dwell on. I guess Zuko wasted no time at all this morning, getting right down to business. She fought to keep the hardness from her voice. “Well, I hope they come back soon, before their food gets cold.”
“You know Aang,” Sokka retorted, still yawning, “when he smells the food, he’ll be here faster than you can say, ‘Did some—’”
“—Someone say breakfast is ready?” The young monk blew into the room with a gust of air on his glider, much to the group’s amusement. He promptly landed and dove straight for a bowl of food. “I’m starving! Sifu Hotman and I have been practicing all morning. Trying to firebend really works up an appetite.”
“I’ll just bet it does, and not necessarily for food,” Toph smirked, nonchalant. Katara choked on her soup, and her brother eyed her with a measure of concern.
Aang looked at the earthbender quizzically. “What’s that mean?”
“Oh, nothing!” Fiendish cackling ensued.
Zuko followed in at a leisurely walk, sweat evident on his brow and its sheen visible on his neck and collarbone where his open tunic revealed skin. His dark hair was mussed. The practice had obviously been strenuous. Katara watched him surreptitiously from the corner of her eye, careful to not draw attention to her observance of him; she noted to herself that the look on his face bordered on irritation and disappointment, not the calm serenity that she knew from experience usually came after a hard workout.
Was it frustration with Aang? With firebending? Or was it something else….
Why should I care what’s bothering him? she asked herself suddenly, her irritation with him flaring up again to drown out the inner voice of the nurturer. To her dismay, she found she had no answer to her question.
He came to her to take a bowl of food, and she placed it down on the ground in front of her, looking away—anywhere but in his eyes—as she did. He paused, for what seemed like a long moment, before he bent to pick up the dish and took it with him to the opposite side of the low-burning camp fire. Katara tried not to watch him as he crossed his legs and sat and began to eat.
“I thought Teo and the Duke and I would go exploring today,” Haru announced to no one in particular, as he finished the dregs of his porridge. “This temple is huge, and there’s a lot we haven’t seen of it yet. There might be some secret or hidden rooms, or something! Maybe we can even dig up some information about the airbenders that lived here?”
Aang’s smile was bright. “That’s a great idea! I’d probably be a big help if you came across any Air Nomad writings or scrolls or something; maybe I should go with y—”
“No.” In the small gathering room, the Fire Prince’s stern voice held an echo. “We need to practice more, later this afternoon. Remember?”
There was no disguising the annoyance in his words, and the young monk was instantly silenced, ducking his head slightly. A momentary hush fell over the rest of the group. Maybe it is the firebending that’s frustrating him, Katara realized. She stirred her soup thoughtfully. Perhaps that was why he’d felt such a need to get an early start that day, without greeting anyone beforehand, like he was ashamed, or embarrassed, or had done something the previous night that he now regretted…
Suddenly Sokka turned to his sister and eyed her carefully. “Katara—what is that on your neck? It looks…it almost looks like something bit you?”
Katara froze; she could feel the blood steadily draining from her features. The others had turned toward her to stare curiously in her direction. “…Something bit me?” she repeated, as feebly as she could, and brought her hand to one side of her neck protectively. A few feet away, Toph dissolved into quiet snickering.
Sokka, his mouth full, waved with his chopsticks. “Not that side—the other side.” He leaned in her direction and cocked his head to get a better look at it. She glanced at the opposite end of the fireside to witness the corners of Zuko’s mouth quirking upwards as he fixed his gaze into his soup bowl, and the blood came quickly rushing back into her face, searing her cheeks with a burning, humiliating flush. Oh shit, he didn’t—
“It’s really bruising quite a bit; it’s almost purple,” her brother noted objectively. Now even Haru and Aang were getting up to come over to look at it. Toph’s quiet snickering had somehow morphed into loud, raucous laughter.
Katara jumped to her feet and rushed out of the room. “I’m going to go heal it—be right back!”
She ran down the open-air hallway to the water fountain and plunged her hand inside, coating it with a glowing glove of healing before wrapping the hand around her neck. As she felt the water’s transformative effects begin to take place she could feel her heart pounding fiercely in her chest.
He marked me, last night…I can’t believe I’d forgotten it. She recalled the fact that it had happened right after she’d bit down on his fingers when he covered her mouth. The moment her teeth had cut into his flesh—and then his into hers—she’d lost control of herself completely. They really had behaved like wild animals; it should have been shameful.
But Katara thought of his smirk from across the campfire, and shame was surprisingly nowhere to be found.
***
She didn’t see either Aang or Zuko again until dusk. She hadn’t asked, but Sokka reported they had still been training on an upper level of the temple when he’d last seen them. The knowledge that the Fire Prince was doing what was requested or expected of him didn’t serve to lessen the knot of anxiety inside her that was slowly turning into annoyance. He still hadn’t even spoken to her the entire day.
She busied herself with mending a pair of Toph’s spare pants—how the girl managed to get holes in almost every piece of clothing she owned was beyond Katara’s comprehension—and cleaning Appa’s saddle, and eventually moved on to preparing the evening meal. They’d managed to scrounge up some picken meat the other day, and with the sparse leftover spices from their dwindling food supplies, she was able to make a stir-fry with herbs and fresh vegetables. It was a more extravagant meal, and definitely didn’t stretch as far—but it was a pleasant change from the soup and rice porridge they always ate.
She was finishing it up as the group returned from their daily activities—Zuko and Aang from firebending, Haru and the younger boys from scouting, and Toph and Sokka only doing who knew what…probably getting themselves into trouble—and the smell of the food alone seemed to draw everyone in to the temple gathering room. Aang rushed in immediately, followed by Sokka, Toph, and the rest; only Zuko, she noted, stayed back at the fringes of the group. He seemed to be purposefully distancing himself.
“Wow, what’s the occasion, Katara?” Sokka asked, happily devouring the food. “It’s not every day you make a dish like this.” He wolfed down a piece of picken meat and exhaled around it, fanning his mouth as tears started to form in his eyes. “Ahhh, ’ss spicy, too!”
Katara toyed with her own chopsticks. “No occasion. I just thought we could eat something with a little more…heat to it, for once, I guess.” She made a point not to glance at the sulking Fire Prince in the shadows, even furtively.
When Zuko did finally approach them at the fireside, as she’d been waiting for him to, it was not to extol the praises of the meal she’d made but to deliver a solemn announcement. “I have some bad news,” he said tersely, bowing his head. “I’ve lost my stuff.”
Toph held up her hands. “Don’t look at me! I didn’t touch your stuff.”
His lip quirked as though it meant to form a smile, but it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. “I meant my firebending. It’s gone.”
Having expected a very different sort of conversation, Katara couldn’t help herself; she threw back her head and laughed. She tried stifling the remainder of it behind her hand, but it was too late—Zuko was glaring at her. She looked up at him and quickly formulated an excuse, albeit a bitchy one. “I’m sorry, I’m just…laughing at the irony. You know, how it would have been convenient for us if you’d lost your firebending a long time ago?”
“It’s not lost. It’s just…weaker, for some reason.” He’d directly contradicted himself. There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, and Katara pounced.
“Maybe you’re just not as good as you think you are.”
His glare deepened, and he fixed her with it as he spoke his next words. “I’ll bet it’s because I changed sides.” She heard his unspoken message between the lines. Maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe this is your fault.
Katara bit her lip, and refrained from saying something even more volatile. “That’s ridiculous,” she seethed quietly, her face reddening, and busied herself with her bowl of food once more. There was absolutely no way that she was the cause of this—not in a million years.
“Maybe it’s not ridiculous,” Aang piped up, in a moment of lucidity. He didn’t seem to notice her blush. “Zuko’s firebending has always seemed to have been fueled by rage and anger before. Maybe he’s lacking it right now.”
“Sooo, all we need to do is piss him off, then, right?” Sokka chirped, and jumped to his feet. He began poking the Fire Prince playfully with the blunt end of Aang’s gliding staff, first at his ribs, then at his head.
Piss him off…I bet I could manage to instill some rage in him, Katara thought. She felt the inexplicable urge to punish him for something, anything, even if it was something she was guilty of as well. Anything as long as it provoked a response.
Sokka was still poking at him, and she could see that it took a great deal of Zuko’s patience not to erupt in anger. He seemed to be keeping a sufficient handle on it until he looked over in her direction again; then his face crumpled in frustration, and he smacked the staff aside. “Knock it off!” Sokka ducked at the outburst and covered his head protectively.
Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose as though to relieve some imaginary headache. “Even if it used to be fueled by anger—I don’t want it to be, anymore. There has to be another source for it.”
Toph interjected and began talking about the source of earthbending, and Katara unconsciously tuned the conversation out. She ate sullenly, attempting to hide behind her dish while watching him with an almost irritable caution.
So that was the reason he’d seemed so tense the entire day. It wasn’t because of their actions the night before, or any uncertainties of where they stood with one another, or anything relating to the two of them, at all—it was his firebending he was concerned with, and only that. And rightfully so, she reminded herself. Have you forgotten he’s Aang’s instructor? Have you forgotten that the fate of the world rests upon whether Aang can master something that only Zuko can teach him?
Still, he could have just acknowledged what had happened between them last night; he didn’t need to pick flowers or write love poems, but he could have at least showed her somehow that he was thinking about it, that it was something that had affected him, and not just a silly little one-time fling that wouldn’t ever be repeated…
Her chopsticks froze on the way to her mouth, and her lips gaped at the thought. Hold up. Wait a second. Who said he was even remotely interested in last night being repeated?
It was she who’d demanded it as she had hastily pulled on her clothes afterwards, and as he’d watched her wordlessly as he reclined on the bed, still naked. She hadn’t bothered to linger to hear his answer on the subject, but at the time she felt it had probably been received pretty well; she recalled the way her body had still continued to thrum pleasantly hours after their encounter.
But what if Zuko didn’t see it that way? What if he’d gotten what he needed, and now he couldn’t care less about it? He might even consider me a nuisance now, demanding ‘penance’ from him. Their conversation just moments ago, punctuated with carefully-concealed barbs, served to reinforce the idea in her mind; Katara swallowed heavily and set her chopsticks back down in her bowl. Suddenly her appetite had diminished.
She looked up at the conversation going on around her, and realized that Aang and Zuko were talking of leaving to visit an old shrine close by that belonged to an ancient race of firebenders, the Sun Warriors.
“You’re leaving? Tonight?” she asked abruptly, drawing the attention of the entire group, but not finding the will enough to care.
Zuko’s features were firm. “It won’t be hard to get there on the flying bison. We should be able to find it in a few hours’ travel. We need to take care of this as soon as possible.” He met her gaze, but he was having trouble keeping it.
“So, what,” Sokka began skeptically, “you’re going to go try to pick up some Sun Warrior energy just by going there and standing where they supposedly stood, thousands of years earlier?”
“Either I find a new way to firebend,” Zuko deadpanned, “or the Avatar has to find himself a new firebending teacher.”

***

It had already been dark for several hours when Aang finally leapt up onto the air bison’s back. “Come on, Zuko, let’s go! The sooner we get there, the sooner we can start our real training.”
She had been studiously ignoring both of them—Aang simply by proxy—since dinner, but Katara finally roused herself to go to them as they were preparing to leave. “Wait!”
She reached up to Aang from the ground, handing him the makeshift basket of food. “It should be enough for at least a day. I don’t know how long you both will be gone, if it will just be overnight or not, but…” Her voice trailed off uncertainly as Zuko approached to stand close to her. “But…it should hopefully…be enough.”
“Thanks, Katara,” Aang chirped, happily oblivious.
Zuko was watching her with that intently penetrating gaze that made her somewhat uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he said, quietly.
A part of her felt as though it were an icy wall, melting under his stare; she ruthlessly quelled the feeling and fortified her defenses. Her features hardened. “Just watch yourself and don’t mess up while you’re out there,” she said sternly, adding under her breath so the airbender didn’t hear, “Aang is your responsibility, for now.”
His eyes changed and his lips tightened. “I know.” Then he was climbing aboard Appa, and with a cry of yip-yip from Aang, they were taking off into the dark night sky.

***
She lay in her bed, counting the misshapen stone tiles of her room’s ceiling—which was really supposed to be the floor of her room in such a topsy-turvy place, but she decided not to dwell on the minute details of it—and wondered how much longer it would take her to sleep. Katara sighed to herself. It was going to be a long night, particularly when one was wrestling with one’s own conscience to boot.
It’s just one night. Then they’ll be back tomorrow, and then I’ll have to talk to him, eventually.
For some reason this had been easier for her to ruminate on the previous night. Why did it seem so hard to talk to him, now? It wasn’t as if things had been left awkwardly—they had both enjoyed the experience. They had both gotten pleasure from it. He hadn’t said for certain whether or not he’d wanted it to be repeated, but…
But why are you so concerned about it, anyway? He’s Zuko. He’s going to betray us all again, when he gets the chance.
He had proven in Ba Sing Se that he wasn’t the most trustworthy of people, ready to turn on someone at a moment’s notice if it served his purposes. Sure, he seemed like he’d made the decision to side with them permanently, and he had defended them from Combustion Man; but what would happen when and if he was offered a better deal by the Fire Nation, again? Zuko had struggled with these kind of decisions before, as she had reminded him the previous night.
Which was a couple of hours before you went back to his room later on, and fucked him.
The word alone, even in her head, made her shiver. It was a vulgar and coarse term, and never would she even imagine using it in the presence of anyone else—especially not around Aang or Sokka—but it fit, in her mind at least, the description of what they’d done the previous night. It was fucking, she thought; there wasn’t any love in it…he encouraged me and showed me what to do, but I was the one who took him inside of me. He let me have the control…and I fucked him.
Not for the first time since the previous night, she reflected on the fact that he’d essentially let her take the reins during their encounter. It had been strange, of course, and awkward at first…but then it had become liberating…and thrilling. He’d asked her where on her body she’d wanted him to put his mouth, and having been given the power to direct him where and how to do it was intoxicating. She’d never known that kind of control before, where it wasn’t someone’s health or nourishment, or safety, or the welfare of the group on the line—instead it had been solely about pleasing her, and her word had been final. There. Not there—there. Softly. Harder.
Katara suddenly interrupted her own musings. And here I am again, reliving those moments, thinking about him. Again.
This needs to stop.
It was hard—very hard—to keep her thoughts clear of him, and to stave off her body’s reactions to thinking of such things…but she had to. If he considered her a nuisance, if he didn’t want anything to do with her after what they had done the night before, it was better to just forget everything that had happened.
It’s just as well, she thought miserably, as she tried to fall asleep. He and I were born enemies of one another. Some things just weren’t meant to change.

***
Katara came to realize that the next day was not going to be any easier to bear, by any means.
She stomped her way to the center of the temple, still groggy and half-delirious from lack of sleep. She snapped at Haru when he mentioned how exhausted she looked. She spilled some of the porridge she was cooking for the group’s early morning breakfast, and fussed incessantly over it. The Duke regarded her with partly-fearful, partly-melancholy big brown eyes. He and the others kept their careful distances.
Except for Toph. Toph, who was probably the last person she wanted to deal with on such a day, wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Sure was quiet here, last night,” the earthbender remarked gleefully, her sarcasm not lost on Katara as she cleaned and rinsed the dishware with her waterbending. “Not like the night before—man, last night I couldn’t hear anything going on. Slept like a baby! I guess those animals that had been fighting must have resolved their differences, huh, Katara?”
Katara muttered something under her breath in response, and Toph, with her super-keen-extrasensory hearing, had the nerve to provoke her further—even going as far as to cup a hand around her ear. “What’d you say, Ice Princess? I didn’t quite get that.”
“You heard me. I said, ‘that’s good, Toph’.”
Toph held up her hands in supplication at the building anger in Katara’s voice. “Hey—no need to get all prickly, Miss Fussybritches. I was just pointing out the obvious.”
Oh—that does it, Koh take her. Her water splashed angrily to the ground, the earthenware rice bowls falling suit with a thump. “Look,” she snarled, whirling on her, “I don’t know what you think you know about what went on the night before last, but I can tell you right now, that whatever you’re thinking couldn’t be further than the—”
“I made him swear on his broadswords that he wouldn’t hurt you,” Toph offered casually, picking at a hangnail on her finger.
Katara’s fury dissipated in an instant, mouth dropped open in surprise. “The—what?”
The blind girl shrugged, sighing impatiently as though Katara had forced her to reveal a much-guarded secret. “I made him promise me that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, that’s all. ‘S not the end of the world or anything. You just don’t have to worry about that, okay?”
Still too stunned to fully process the information, Katara blinked confusedly. “Toph, that’s…that’s nice of you…I think.”
“Yeah, well,” she scoffed sarcastically in response, “don’t get used to it or anything. I’m not always gonna stick my neck out for you. I just have to look out to make sure that the caregiver of the whole group doesn’t get her heart stomped on and tossed away by some fire-wielding idiot…because then where would we be if you were crying your eyes out all day?” She waved her hand in the air nonchalantly. “Probably hungry and stuck out in a desert somewhere.”
Katara frowned. “So did he say anything else, after you made him promise not to…hurt me?”
Toph smirked, hands behind her head once more. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” When Katara folded her arms impatiently, she went on, “Well, he did make the comment that he thought he owed you much more than that.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected to hear, and Katara considered the words for a long moment. “But…when did you—”
“And look, I know it’s really none of my business, but—would you mind keeping it down more, next time? You have no idea how loud you are. When Sparky tells you to be quiet, you really should take his advice.”
Now the waterbender sputtered in frustration. She turned beet red. “Wh—there’s not going to be a next time!” Taking a couple of breaths to calm herself, she started again, her resolve strengthened. “Toph, listen. I’m really sorry that you heard anything going on the previous night, but what happened between Zuko and I…it was a mistake. It’s not going to be repeated.”
Toph snorted. “Whatever you say, Sweetness.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“I’m serious. And…I’d like it if you could keep this a secret,” Katara continued, “especially from Sokka—and Aang, for that matter—oh, just don’t tell anybody else about this, all right?”
“What, you think I don’t know how to keep a secret?” The blind girl huffed indignantly, putting her hand over her heart. “For your information, Katara, I am an expert at secret-keeping. You can trust me with your most sensitive information, and I swear I won’t let it slip, not one word.” She paused and added as an afterthought, “Just don’t tell Hotpants that I told you about making him promise—I promised him I wouldn’t tell, either...”
Katara groaned and buried her face in her hands. I’m doomed.
***
She spent the remainder of the afternoon fending off the questioning glances from Haru and Sokka, and the later part of it saw her wandering around in the lower level of the temple near the group’s sleeping quarters. She finally looked up at one point to find herself standing directly in the doorway of Zuko’s room.
How ironic, Katara thought crossly. She couldn’t seem to get away from the firebender or reminders of him, even when he wasn’t even present and accounted for. Well, even though he’s not here, it’s not a crime to just go in there and look around.
She stepped hesitantly inside, pushing the wooden door open with a slow creak. His room was sparsely organized, as all of theirs were; they didn’t have many belongings after having traveled on the back of an air bison for nearly a year, and she wouldn’t have expected a banished Prince of the Fire Nation to either, for that matter. His spare clothes were neatly folded on top of a rustic-looking armoire, an extra pair of shoes neatly tucked away in a corner by the bed, and an empty scabbard—he most likely had one he carried on him—that normally would have contained his dual broadswords, hung over the back of the chair in the corner.
She went to the chair and ran her hands gently over the soft fabric of it, letting her fingers brush over the scabbard. The sheath was made of sturdy leather, smooth to the touch but it felt as though it were strong enough to withstand almost anything.
Has it really been almost a year? she wondered absently, filled with a mild surprise. It doesn’t feel as though that much time’s gone by…but so many things have happened, since this all started. Nearly a year ago, the thought of Zuko joining the group—befriending Aang, and Toph, and her own brother—would have been unfathomable to her.
And now, look, a shameful part of her reminded; a year later, you’re sharing the Prince’s bed. She shook her head briefly to clear it.
He had a single framed picture on his nightstand table by his bedside that she hadn’t noticed two nights ago, and Katara went to it, picking it up and staring at it with curiosity.
She recognized the man in the drawn portrait immediately—it was his uncle, Iroh. They had met in Ba Sing Se, when he’d helped Aang free both herself and Zuko from being trapped in the underground crystal caverns below the city. He had seemed like such a kind, patient, understanding old man; it was hard to believe he was the brother of Fire Lord Ozai, and Zuko’s blood relation.
Zuko said he had betrayed his uncle, and Iroh was imprisoned for it. And now he has a picture of him, beside his bed? Katara wondered at the implications of it.
Perhaps he really did feel remorse for what he had done, and wasn’t just telling them what they wanted to hear. Maybe he was being honest with them. Maybe her demands of penitence were redundant…perhaps he was already putting himself through something much worse.
She set the picture down again and turned to his bed. The coverlet was still slightly rumpled from his sleep, but at least he’d made the effort to pull everything up in an attempt to bring some order to it. She straightened it unconsciously, her fingers moving over the coverlet to smooth out the wrinkles, before a sudden thought occurred to her—she leaned down over the pillows, barely touching her nose against the fabric, and inhaled slowly.
Him. It smells like him. Very subtle, but it was a combination of something vaguely spicy, some warm notes of jasmine—probably from all of the tea he drinks—and a faint whiff of smoke, from a clean-burning fire.
An unusual scent, but a very pleasant one. Katara took several more deep breaths against the pillow, closing her eyes as she did, her mind helpfully conjuring up his image to accompany it. At first it was just a hazy representation of him, but then her mind focused on his eyes—both his good one and his slitted, scarred one—and then his lips as he spoke, and his hands as he moved.
And then the image became his hands on her, and his mouth on her, and her recollections from the previous night came flooding back with a vengeance. She felt the heavy pulse of her own blood begin to permeate her entire body.
Oh.
Katara climbed upon the bed, dragging her legs over the soft comforter, and pressed herself face-down into it. She buried her entire face against the soft cloth and breathed deeply, surrounded by his scent. A paralyzing dizziness began to overtake her as her mouth became dry and between her legs became wet.
She couldn’t escape the inevitable.
Her hands curled tightly in the coverlet she’d just straightened. She grit her teeth, grimacing. Damn.
Damn you, you Angry Jerk!

***
Outwardly calm, she prepared the group’s dinner as usual, taking care to provide each with their preferred meal requirements—extra meat for Sokka and Toph, no ginger for The Duke, extra scallions for Haru and Teo. When it had been all dished up she sat back on her heels amidst the circle around the campfire, and tried to determine what else she could focus her racing thoughts on. She wrung a washing cloth through her hands, distracted.
Sokka looked at her, and then at her empty food bowl. “You’re not eating?”
Katara shook her head hurriedly. She couldn’t have eaten if she’d tried. Her own stomach was already occupied with a knotted mass of anxiety, a rush of desire, and a heaping portion of guilt.
“It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Zuko and Aang are back,” Haru stated around a mouthful of food. “I wonder if they’ll have learned any new techniques.”
“Let’s hope that Zuko has, at least,” Toph inserted in a knowingly sarcastic tone, and Katara’s insides churned at the subtle innuendo. “Maybe something good that he can do with his hands?” The waterbender paled slightly.
“No way, that guy’s a total disaster,” Sokka scoffed. “He’s gonna need a lot more work before he can be a teacher.”
The Duke swallowed his food and spoke up innocently. “I think Zuko seems like a hard worker. He can probably get the job done, if he tries hard enough.”
Katara shifted uncomfortably on her knees.
“I have it on good authority that he works pretty hard at things, too,” Toph replied, smirking. “He doesn’t seem like the type to give up until he’s sure the job is done, to someone’s satisfaction.”
That does it.
Katara rose, her hands shaking slightly, and addressed the group. “I’m—I’m going. To my room. Because….ah…because I have a stomachache.”
She headed for the center of the temple, tossing a ‘goodnight’ behind her. Behind her, she could hear Sokka mumbling about how strange she was acting, and Toph’s vicious snickering.
She made her way quickly to her bedroom in the far wing, and locked the door behind her with the metallic hook and latch. Katara was vaguely aware of the depravity of what she was about to do—that it was like he’d won, as though she were giving in to him again, just as she had two nights before—but she decided it didn’t matter in the scheme of things.
Shedding her clothes down to her white wrapped long underwear, she crawled underneath the thin coverlet of her own bed and stretched her limbs appreciatively at the coolness of the sheets against her bared and feverish skin. She had never imagined she could feel so warm to the touch. From underneath her pillow, she drew a cloth pillowcase that she’d taken from Zuko’s bed and hidden in her room for the remainder of the day; she crushed it to her face, burying her nose against the soft cloth and inhaling slowly.
Her heart was pounding out a frenzied rhythm in her ribcage, and she put a hand to her clothed chest to feel it. It was muted by the wrapping covering her breasts, and after a moment’s hesitation she shrugged herself out of it underneath the sheet, tossing it onto the floor. Her hand returned to her chest, pressing against her skin to feel the vibration of her heart’s tempo. The hand moved as her skin strummed, slipping across her sternum and curving around the swell of her breast, fingers brushing lightly over a hardened nipple.
Inhaling his scent deeply again, she closed her eyes; behind them, he was kissing the inside of the palm of her hand as she’d asked him to. His gaze when he looked at her was soft burnished gold in the dimmed light, his lips soft and wet. They moved stealthily up the inside of her arm, accompanied by his tongue, and she curled her fingers benevolently and gently in his tousled dark hair as they did.
Now her other hand was sliding down past her ribs, past the smooth flat skin of her stomach, stopping at the waistband of her long white underwear. She hesitated, but only long enough to slide the material down her hips, lifting her ass slightly to do so. Her fingers tentatively explored the brush of curling hair between her legs, and she gasped at the feeling as she ran the pad of a finger through the seam, parting her lips; she’d become so wet just thinking about him.
In her mind’s eye he was the one doing the stroking. She imagined each look he’d give as he did, how his hair would hang in his face as he leaned over her, obscuring his eyes and partially hiding the pink skin of his scar; his teeth worrying his own bottom lip, in concentration.
Then her thoughts took a sudden and drastically different turn: now she was up against a tree, along a riverbank, eerily similar to the one where she had found the waterbending scroll, and she was in restraints. He had tied rope around her, but not only over her wrists behind her—the rope covered almost her entire torso. Zuko was holding the secured end of the rope in one hand and cupping her naked breast—strategically bared through her bindings—in the other.
She began to stroke faster, her fingers slipping over wet and swollen flesh; her face felt hot.
Piece by piece he removed parts of her water tribe clothing, teasing her as he did, assuring her she had no say in the situation and he would do as he pleased. He bared both breasts through the rope securing her to the tree, and he played with her nipples tauntingly as she begged him for release.
She gasped, her fingers relentless.
He touched her through what remained of her clothing, fondled her as she was bound and helpless; only at the very last moving his fingers to stroke her between her legs.
Katara’s body seized up as her pleasure washed over her. Her vision went white.

***
Outside her window, morning had come. She blearily turned over in her bed, facing the light, and knew they hadn’t returned home.
She rose and began the day again as mechanically as the last.
***
The other members of the group were not-so-strangely silent around her—they still feared her dark mood from the day before. Katara washed and cleaned for them, keeping herself busy, keeping her mind and body and fingers occupied, keeping her head just barely above water.
Now, she was worried about them. Now she wanted them back—both of them.
“Boy, they’ve been gone for a while, now,” Sokka noted, stretching and scratching his stomach absently as he furtively watched his sister out of the corner of his eye. “I hope Aang and the Jerkbender are both okay.” Katara tried unsuccessfully three times to respond to him with assurance in her voice; after the third try, she gave up.
That afternoon she went back to Zuko’s room and spent hours sitting on his bed, not staring at anything in particular.
***
That night, they returned.
It was late, everyone having had long gone to sleep when Katara woke to hear Appa’s soft, low groaning somewhere on an upper level of the temple. She leapt out of her bed, instantly awake, throwing her robe loosely over the white wrappings of her long underwear before sprinting out of her bedroom and out to the open-air balcony, hair tangled and feet bare.
Zuko and Aang had just dismounted and were wearily unpacking their supplies. They turned to her as she approached, and Katara could see the dark circles evident underneath both sets of eyes, gray and gold, making both faces long and drawn in the shadows of the temple.
“Where have you been?” she demanded in a fierce whisper, looking from one to the other. “You’ve been gone for three days!”
“Two days, Katara,” Aang replied tiredly. “We were only gone for two days.”
“We had a slight…setback for one day,” Zuko finally spoke, the gravelly edge in his voice even more pronounced than usual from weariness. He looked her in the eyes and Katara held her breath. “I’m sorry we’re late.” Though his voice betrayed his fatigue, there was a calm and a peace of mind there that hadn’t existed before. It quieted her.
She realized Aang was looking at her longingly from the corner of her vision, but she refused to turn toward him and kept her eyes locked with Zuko’s.
“I’m just….glad you’re back,” she said, uncomfortably aware of what she was saying, and to whom. “I was worried.” Her hands fisted nervously at her sides—she didn’t know whether she wanted to embrace him or slap him, but she knew in her convoluted mind that touch was somehow involved. Instead, she wrapped the edges of her open robe tightly around her frame.
Aang was smiling at her as she finally broke her stare to look at him. “Katara, we have so much to tell you about! The Sun Warriors, and the golden egg that Zuko tried to steal, and the Dragons, and—”
“Dragons?”
“Tomorrow,” Zuko punctuated, and Katara turned again to him in surprise. “We’ll have time to talk about it to everyone, tomorrow.” He nodded at Aang. “Right now we should get some much-needed sleep.”
She was vastly disappointed with this statement. “…You’re just going to go to sleep?” she asked disbelievingly.
“All of us should.” He took both packbags and slung them over his shoulder. Katara felt rather than saw his eyes travel over her. “You look like you could use more rest, as well.”
She bristled. “I’m just fine, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
He motioned to Aang; the young airbender followed him toward the interior of the temple, throwing bewildered glances back in her direction until even he seemed tiredly resigned to Zuko’s orders. Katara was left on the balcony alone, blinking at their sudden departure.
Her confusion was slowly turning to aggravation. Had she missed something, she wondered? Did she overlook a sign, a hint—some sort of discreet signal that he would have given her, in Aang’s presence? She replayed their exchange quickly in her head, and bit her lip in frustrated and thinly-concealed anger when she couldn’t discern any.
Fine. So that’s the way he wants to play it. Far be it from me to be the one who comes crawling to him, after this.
On the way back to her bed she invented a mantra to discourage herself from going to his room, and she repeated it to herself over and over before finally surrendering to a fitful sleep many hours later.
***
She was less than prepared the next day for human interaction. Aang and Zuko had apparently slept wonderfully, and following a light breakfast were intent upon showing the gang what they had learned from the Sun Warrior culture.
They performed what Zuko had described as a series of complicated firebending moves they’d learned from the statues in the warriors’ temple, meant to both increase firebending power and placate the two remaining dragons who had judged them. They lunged and posed, throwing their arms into the sharp movements and bracing themselves with intricate footwork. Katara watched the demonstration with a carefully frosted mask of indifference, intensifying her icy gaze into a glare whenever she turned it on the firebending Prince.
Sokka was in hysterics by the end of it, even as the others clapped politely. “Are you two serious?” he crowed, wiping his eyes. “We’re just gonna waltz into the Fire Nation capitol and tap dance our way to victory over the Fire Lord?”
“It’s not a dance, it’s a firebending form,” Zuko insisted, scowling as he broke the ending posture and approached the group. “It’s a sacred form that happens to be thousands of years old!”
“Oh yeah?” Katara asked snidely. “What’s your little form called?”
Zuko started to grimace before she’d even finished her question. He looked as though he’d eaten a sour papaya. “…The Dancing Dragon.”
The group broke into snickering laughter, and the Fire Prince’s lips twitched and convulsed.
Then the Duke spoke up from behind Toph, twisting his hands together in uncertainty. “I…I kind of liked it,” he confessed. “It looked like you really were dancing with a dragon.” Aang and Zuko both gave relieved grins at the boy’s admission.
“That’s because we were,” Aang offered proudly, and the Duke’s smile broadened in awe.
“There were two of them; a red one and a blue one,” Zuko continued, his gold eyes gleaming with excitement, “possibly a mated pair. Aang and I both believe what we thought initially was a gemstone is actually their egg…and if that’s true, then they really haven’t died out like I was afraid they had, after all. My great-grandfather’s plan to eradicate them failed.” He turned to look over at the airbender once more, and both boys beamed.
“Well, isn’t that just lucky for you,” Katara spoke up, witnessing the Fire Prince’s confidence quickly deflating as she did. Her voice was laden with ice. “Looks like your family is off the hook for at least one of the many extinctions they’ve caused.”
The rest of the group gaped at her in surprise. “Katara—” Aang started, the beginnings of a frown on his face, but she wouldn’t let him finish.
She realized she was raining on their happy-dragon-parade, but the angry, shunned part of her couldn’t muster up the sensitivity to care. “What, so we’re supposed to be celebrating the fact that there are a couple of remaining dragons left behind that the Fire Nation didn’t kill? What about the Air Nomads—oh wait, there’s no one left but Aang! What about the Water Tribe people they’ve killed, and how they wiped out nearly every last waterbender at the South Pole?” Her voice rose now, almost hysterically. “What about my mother?”
Aang was looking at her with something resembling horror, Toph was slack-jawed and even Sokka and Haru had bowed their heads. The Duke looked as if he were about to cry. Zuko’s mouth opened and closed again, most likely trying to form words that wouldn’t take shape.
“You think that just because you’ve joined the Avatar now and decided to teach him firebending that you can make everything right in the world, again,” she raged at Zuko. “But you can’t! There are things your people did that are so horrific that they will never be undone. No amount of firebending lessons or tea-making or dancing with dragons will ever make up for it!”
She was on her feet now. Instead of standing his ground and fighting back, as she’d thought—no, hoped—he would do, he said nothing and turned his gaze toward the ground, lips pressed tightly together. Her voice became snide again.
“Oh—but don’t let me stop you from celebrating your worthwhile accomplishments. They’re so important, after all. Maybe if you have enough of them, we’ll just look the other way the next time your family decides to exterminate someone.” She crossed her arms and stomped off, leaving the group to look after her, mouths still open.
But she heard Sokka, even as she made her way towards the temple’s interior: “…Okay, is she gone? Is she gone yet?...is sh—okay, good. Zuko, show us the dance again; I promise I won’t laugh, this time. I won’t. I swear it.”

***
She had managed to avoid everyone as long as possible, but by the late afternoon as the sun began its descent towards the horizon, she knew it was inescapable that she would have to prepare the evening meal.
You have to go about this differently, Katara thought to herself, as she collected firewood above ground a short distance away from the temple. She recalled the devastated look on Aang’s face when she’d insulted his new best friend and firebending tutor; she knew inside that she couldn’t keep having such confrontations with Zuko in front of him. It would tear him up, inside. Aang wanted everyone to get along, and that especially included her, as important as she knew she was to him.
He shouldn’t see us fighting. It’s not good for him. It might even interfere with his lessons and learning fire—
Her thoughts stopped abruptly as she heard a twig snap on the ground nearby, and her heart instantly leapt into her chest. She’d thought she was alone.
Katara reached instinctively for the cap on her waterskin, but her hand wasn’t fast enough. She found herself suddenly pinned to the nearest tree, face-first, firm hands on her wrists bending them behind her back. She turned her head halfway and smelled jasmine and the faintest trace of smoke. Her fright disappeared—replaced by anger and something else, winding tightly in the lower portion of her body. Zuko.
His face was against her ear. His voice was a low growl. “That was some performance, earlier,” he snarled quietly. “I’ll bet you rehearsed that while I was gone, didn’t you?”
“I meant every word,” she answered sternly, yanking at her trapped wrists. “Let go of me.”
He held her fast. “So you could waterwhip me or bend my blood? Not a chance.”
“Zuko, let go of me, right now.” There was ice in her voice that she hoped he was paying attention to. She didn’t want to hurt him, not after what had happened between them two nights before—but she wouldn’t be made helpless like this, either.
“I have half a mind to just tie you here, like this, instead,” he went on, his voice a raspy purr in her ear. He switched her wrists to one of his; his other hand traced its fingers slowly and gently down her back, lingering over the swell of her hip. Against her will, his light touch made her shiver. Katara could almost hear the smirk in his voice. “I think you liked that, before. I think you’d like it even more, this time.”
Involuntary flashes of the vivid fantasy from two nights previous invaded her mind. “Get real,” she spat, her face reddening, attempting to buck against him to push him away.
Zuko pushed roughly into her in response, still holding her wrists behind her but now pressing her into the tree with his body, her cheek mashed against the cool bark. His chest was nearly flush against her back, and now she could feel the evidence of his apparent excitement against the cheeks of her backside, even through her insulating robe. She gasped when she realized what it was, and wondered how the simple feel of it could render her momentarily speechless.
“You know,” he spoke lowly, huskily into her ear, his lips brushing past her hair, “when you say those things to me, such as what you said this morning—laughing at me and taunting me, like you did—it doesn’t hurt me like you think it does.” He ground his erection against her ass as he spoke, and her breath betrayed her with a choking, gasping sound. “I’m used to adversity. I thrive on it. You know what it does?” He paused, as if he were giving her time to answer. “It makes me want this more. It makes me want to do the things we did a couple of nights ago, more.” Again she could feel his smirk, as well as the hardness of his cock straining through his pants. “So if you’re trying to drive me away, you’d better try harder.”
So he did want it. All along she’d been unsure that he’d wanted to repeat their encounter—but had he just been waiting for it, biding his time? Was Zuko, the son of Fire Lord Ozai, more patient than even she herself was? It didn’t seem possible.
Regardless, she was angry with how he’d brushed her aside so quickly the day after their encounter, and upon his return; and she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“You’re crazy,” she hissed, trying desperately to channel her burgeoning desire into venom. “If you think I want anything to do with you at all anymore, you’re absolutely crazy.”
“Am I.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I see right through your demands for penance. I know what it is that you really want from me. And you’re too picken-shit to ask for it.”
Katara was panting now, every nerve tense, fury mixed with fear mixed with the urge to allow him to enact whatever he was thinking. “And what’s that supposed to be?”
His free hand moved to hold her chin firmly in his hand, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper as he punctuated his words with a barely discernable thrust of his hips. “Oh, I think you know.” He released her chin, and the whisper turned teasing. “Did you play with yourself, while I was gone?”
She barely had time to sputter indignantly in answer, before he asked further, “Did you touch yourself between the legs, imagining it was me doing it?”
Now her face was beet-red and her cheeks felt as though they were aflame. How could he know that? “N-no!” she insisted hotly.
“No?” he teased. “You didn’t slip your fingers down between your legs, at night, when you were alone—”
“Of course not!”
“—you didn’t stroke yourself there…didn’t make yourself come, thinking about what I was going to do to you when I got back?”
She hardened herself, tried to control the betrayal that was her body’s response. “I didn’t think of you at all, Zuko.”
As if in answer, he moved his free hand to boldly cup a breast inside her robe, stroking the hardened nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Liar.”
Katara went rigid. I am not going to let him have control of this situation. Taking a deep breath, she summoned all of the spite and malice she could into her voice. “Get…your hands…off of me.”
A moment passed, and finally she felt him loosening his grip. He backed away from her slowly, giving her time to become acutely aware of the warmth of his body retreating from hers, and released her wrists only at the very end to prevent her from using her bending. When he had stepped away, she turned slowly to face him.
He opened his mouth to speak again—and that was when Katara struck him across the face in a hard, open-handed slap. Her hand hit his cheek just below his scar. The force of it knocked his face to the side, and in that deafening silence that followed he stood perfectly, deathly still.
She realized when he stood motionless, a faint red mark blossoming on his face below his scar, that this was probably not the smartest move she’d ever made; but it was only when he turned his face back to look directly into her eyes that Katara knew with certainty she was in trouble. She’d never seen such a look from him, not even during their most reckless bending battles. It was a dangerous combination of anger and apathy.
Shit.
Without another word he left the clearing and headed back down to the temple’s entrance. He didn’t once look back at her, even as she watched him disappear from sight. She sighed, a mixture of relief and dejection, and looked down at her feet.
It was going to be a long night.
***
“MY MOUTH. IT’S ON FIRE. Katara, are you trying to kill me?”
Sokka had decided he didn’t seem to like the culinary changes his sister had made to their meals after all—spicier stir-fry again, as she had a few nights ago—and was protesting loudly. The other kids made off-handed comments about the taste. Only Aang and Zuko remained perfectly silent as they ate their meal—the former satisfied that his dish had contained no meat, the latter simply having nothing to say. Katara looked at the Fire Prince several times and tried to meet his gaze, to no avail.
Finally he stood and left the group huddled around the circle of fire, bidding them goodnight. She tried with difficulty not to let her features pull into a frown in front of the others.
But as she cleaned up after the meal by firelight, she knew what she was inexorably going to do.
***
Katara still tossed and turned in her own bed, hours later and long after the kids had gone to their respective rooms to sleep. She’d waited for two whole hours, hoping he was going to come to her, even if it was in anger—even if it was to get back at her for what she’d done that afternoon—but he hadn’t appeared. Eventually she roused herself, slipping on her blue robe once more and tying it around her, and quietly snuck out of her room.
Zuko’s room wasn’t close to hers; his was in the other wing of the temple’s lower level, more isolated from the rest of the group. As she approached it she glanced at the underside of his closed door, looking for evidence of light to suggest he was awake. None.
She tried the brass handle, careful to not yield any noise while doing so, and to her surprise it was unlocked. Katara pushed it open and looked inside. On his bed, sitting up with his back against the headboard, was a dark figure she could just barely make out in the moonlight. It was so quiet she could hear his breathing.
“…Zuko?” she whispered tentatively.
There was a soft whoosh, and a flash of light—and suddenly he was holding fire in the palm of one hand. It illuminated his face and she saw that he was looking at her, still with the same expression he’d had after she had slapped him.
Katara drew a quick breath, not quite certain if he was about to attack her or not; she visibly relaxed when she saw him touch his hand to a candle’s wick by his bedside before extinguishing his flame. She came into his room and closed the door behind her. He sat back against the headboard, arms crossed against his chest, staring blankly ahead of him.
“…Are you angry with me?” she asked. There was no answer. She came closer. “I…I can understand if you are. I kind of reacted quickly…I wasn’t prepared for what you did to me, earlier…”
Katara waited, hopeful. He was still silent.
“Zuko, please say something,” she whispered, coming closer. “Talk to me.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” Neither the tone of his voice or a single part of his body moved.
Okay, she thought to herself. It’s a start. At least he’s talking—even if it’s just to say he refuses to.
“You seemed to have a lot to say to me a few hours ago,” she noted, gently trying to make light of the situation. Apparently that wasn’t worthy of eliciting a response, so she stopped, standing several feet away from his bed.
“I understand, if you’re mad at me. And I didn’t really mean to do that to you—it was instinctive. And, to be honest, it wasn’t even because of what you said or did to me, when you had me against that tree…it was because…” –here she faltered, uncertainly— “because…you made me feel things, a few nights ago and just then, and…and I don’t know if I should even be feeling them, or not. I’m…I’m not used to feeling things I’m not in control of—” which was a little white lie— “and…I don’t know what to think about it.” It was a less than satisfactory answer, for sure, but it was more honest than she had ever been with him up until that point.
Still, he was unresponsive.
Her temper suddenly flared again. How dare he ignore her like this, after all he had done to her—having made her feel so anxious and upset, tormenting her with whether or not she even deserved a response from him, after their first time—and then now, after she had even gone and made herself vulnerable to him!
“Fine,” she hissed angrily, “have it your way! If you want to just leave it like this, then we will!” She stormed out of his room like a squall, hair flying out behind her, intent on getting as far away from him as she possibly could.
Oh spirits, who am I kidding, she thought to herself miserably. Stomping out on him like this is only going to make things worse, and not for him.
Her obstinate pride now all but diminished, Katara made it as far as the end of the hallway before halting her steps, turning abruptly on her heel and marching straight back into his room. She could have sworn his scarred eye had discreetly flicked towards the doorway as she re-entered, but he was quick to correct it.
She went directly to his bed and stood before it, looking down on him almost imploringly. “Zuko, don’t do this,” she said quietly, grinding the words almost reluctantly between her clenched teeth. “Don’t shut me out.”
She reached for him, leaning over the bed to do so, trying unsuccessfully to unlace one of his arms from the other. “I want you to touch me like you did before,” she whispered, lowering and softening her voice entreatingly. She tugged at his sleeve. “I want you to kiss me again.” She ran her fingers over his scarred ear, threading them through his hair, and she thought for just an instant she could feel him shudder. “I want you to touch me. Don’t you want to touch me?”
Zuko stubbornly held his ground. Undeterred, she leaned in further, bracing herself on the edge of the bed with a hand, and moved to kiss his lips. He turned his head to deflect it. She kissed his cheek and the part of his jawbone she was presented with instead—and, after a slight hesitation, she angled herself and pressed her lips slowly against the mottled skin of his scar, just barely caressing it with her tongue.
That proved to be his undoing.
He turned to face her. Now she could hear that his breathing had become erratic, see that his eyes—both his slitted one and his good one—were glowing gold in the candlelight. He slowly ran his hands over what parts of her he could reach from the bed, traveling over her arms, her waist, her hips. He slid himself to the edge of the bed and fondled her over her clothes and between her legs, rough and unabashed, sliding his hand repeatedly in the dark crevice at the apex of her thighs. He bowed his head against the flat plane of her stomach in what seemed like intense concentration; Katara gasped and tangled her fingers in his hair. The change in him was so sudden.
She heard mumbling and realized he was speaking, his mouth pressed against her robe. “What do you want me to do?” she heard him ask in a quiet whisper. He looked up at her earnestly from underneath her breasts and stroked her cunt firmly again with his hand. “This? Do you want me to kiss you there, like I did before?” She bit her lip and nodded.
Zuko pulled at her robe and she allowed him, still standing, letting it fall open and exposing herself to him. His hands pushed aside material impatiently to get at her skin, tugging and unraveling, finally succeeding in getting her lower half undressed as he slid her leggings down over her hips and pushed them toward her knees. She took deep breaths to calm herself so she didn’t shake in anticipation.
Then he stroked her again, slowly, deliberately, his bare fingers hot to the touch and sliding delicately against the wetness between her legs, and Katara gave a broken moan. She swayed on her feet as her legs buckled. He had to hold onto her hips to steady her.
He sat up, his legs over the side of the bed, and pulled her suddenly face down onto his lap, over his knees.
Katara nearly yelped as her fingers almost touched the stone floor. She struggled to remain upright. “Zu—”
“Shhh.” He held her firmly in place, his hands warm and soothing as they explored her. “I just want to touch you like this.”
She stopped wriggling. Despite the momentary surprise and vulnerability, she felt her mind being overcome by a lust-riddled haze. It was sort of a natural position for such play, she supposed—even if it was just the slightest bit awkward, almost like a misbehaving daughter pulled over her father’s lap. She’d never been put over Hakoda’s knee in such a manner, even when she’d disobeyed as a child; but now she found the idea appealing in some strange and perverse way.
She let herself feel his touch as it traveled lightly up the backs of her naked thighs and caressed the cheeks of her ass. He parted her legs slightly and reached underneath, stroking her wet opening with two fingers, and Katara arched her back willingly to give him more access.
“You like this, don’t you.” Zuko’s voice was soft. She made a breathy sound of agreement. “You want more?” he asked gently. His fingers found her clitoris at the same moment, and her response increased in volume.
“I know you do. I’ll give you more.” His tender, almost paternal tone continued to soothe her and excite her at the same time, so that she was completely and totally unprepared for what he said next.
“But first, I have to punish you.”
His words hadn’t even registered before she felt the palm of his hand come down on her buttocks in a stinging slap. Katara yelped—more from surprise than anything else—and struggled in his grasp. He held her down with both hands, one forcefully on the back of her head.
“Don’t fight me.” His voice had changed from gentle and cajoling to lethally serious. “If you fight me or use your bending against me, I’ll only make it harder.”
She steeled herself, resigned, and she felt his hold on her loosen a bit. The next sharp slap to her ass came soon afterward, but she was ready for it and held back her sounds.
Zuko struck her again, more forcefully than before. “I didn’t say not to make noise. If I’d wanted it quiet, I would have told you to keep quiet.” He smacked her again harder and she winced against the blows, biting her lip, trying desperately not to let him see her reactions.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, but Toph will hear us—and it was likely she already had—but did it really matter? Toph knew what had been going on when it had first started. Katara felt him striking her now with more vehemence, the pain to her backside intensifying with every stinging slap that seared her flesh, and involuntarily a muffled groan escaped her lips. Her buttocks felt as though they were burning under the punishment. Surely his hand will get tired—or start hurting as much as I do—and then it will stop, she thought with a feeble assurance.
It didn’t. If his disciplining hand was in any discomfort, Zuko kept it completely from her; the only sounds that came from him were the strained breathing through his nose, and the occasional soft grunt as his hand made contact with her skin. His stamina was unbelievable. The spanking continued to increase not only in strength but in frequency, and her muffled groans soon became shouts of agony. Tears sprung to her eyes. I can’t believe he’s doing this. Why is he doing this?
But she knew exactly why. She had shamed him in front of the others, and then with the slap when they were alone; she had pushed him too far. As much as he hadn’t deserved her trust, he hadn’t deserved her spitefulness, either. Katara felt the hot tears that had gathered in her eyes spill over her cheeks, her choking breath catching in a sob. There was no justification for the way she’d acted. She had acted like a bitter, ugly person—not just toward him, but towards the others at so many times, as well. I deserved this.
She began to cry, openly. Instead of resisting any further she allowed every strike to chasten her, to wash away the guilt and anger she felt over so many things. It felt like a release.
Then just as abruptly as it had started, it stopped—she felt him pulling her into his embrace even as she still wept, stroking her long, tangled hair from her face, kissing her forehead. He turned her over and spread her on her back over the bed, lying beside her and cradling her close with one arm under, kissing her face, his tongue snaking out from between his lips to taste the wet tears on her cheeks and at the corners of her mouth. When she had exhausted herself with crying and it had tapered off, he kissed her eyelids one by one until they were dry.
His hands instantly roamed over her as though he were blind and learning her by touch, massaging her breasts through her robe before stripping her of it so he could get at her skin, as well as discarding the clothing around her knees; fingers then between her legs, seeking shelter in the hot, damp curls—because she was still wet, extremely so, although she didn’t consciously know why. Those deft fingers traced the outer lips of her cunt, aching and sensitive, and then slid upwards to caress the bundle of nerves at the apex. She felt it swell at his touch. “You’re wet,” he whispered teasingly as he slid two fingers against her hot flesh, and she could hear the faint smugness in his voice as he stroked her in slow, lazy circles, making her shudder. “Still, after all of that, Katara?”
She couldn’t muster up the will to snark at his confidence. He had gone to work on her bared nipples, alternately licking, sucking, and worrying them between his teeth. Katara lost herself in the thrilling sensations, even as her hips vacillated between baring her sore backside to the harsh material of the comforter below her, and yielding further access to her sensitive slit to the hand above her; each one caused her torment.
She was close, so close. Every movement and touch of his brought her closer to the edge of that precipice, that hurdle she longed to clear. He rubbed her slickly now with two fingers on either side of her clit, the pad of a third fingertip stroking it directly—and suddenly her hips were bucking uncontrollably, her entire body locking up in delicious spasms, her loud moan swallowed up by his own hungry mouth.
How it had happened so soon after he’d spanked her bottom until it was red and raw was beyond her comprehension.
Before her wet sheath had even stopped pulsing, Zuko had kicked off his boots and sat up slightly to tug off his pants and shirt. He straddled her still on the bed, one hand burying itself behind her head in her hair and twisting in it, almost painfully. His cock swam in her hazy post-orgasmic field of view, and with his hand fisted in her hair he guided it to her lips.
“Put your mouth on me, like you did before,” he whispered, breathing heavily and not trying to disguise the aggression in his voice. She drew a breath in surprise as she saw how hard and stiff he was—had he been this way the entire time?—and remembered how he had tasted on her tongue. A shiver went through her.
Obediently she covered him with her lips, slowly at first, gently licking at the swollen head. Zuko released his breath in a hiss, but his fingers in her locks tightened even further; her lips gaped around his flesh to gasp with discomfort. “More,” she heard him whisper, greedily, lustily.
Katara took him further into her mouth, sucking on his flesh and swiping her tongue along the underside, the heat in her body nowhere near subsided. He continued to growl orders at her; a minor annoyance. “Deeper. Open your mouth, more…” He sighed when she did, once or twice. It was the only encouragement he would give her. “That’s good.”
As she sucked him, the realization occurred to her that when she had performed the act to his satisfaction, he was going to take it out of her mouth—this hard flesh she lavished such adoring oral attention on—and thrust it up between her legs, driving it inside her, hard, over and over again…and it was going to feel so fucking good. The thought filled her with an ache that she could only describe as a craving, and she shifted her legs and hips restlessly.
When it appeared as though he was starting to get too close he stopped her, pulling her head back to look into her face. She could tell from his good eye that her swollen lips and glazed eyes—still a bit red from crying—seemed to please him somehow, although he tried to disguise it. “Come on, get up,” he snapped at her brusquely, and guided her with rough hands to the chair in the corner, the same one she had seen a couple of days earlier when she’d snuck into his room. His fingers cut bruises into the soft flesh of her upper arms. Katara stumbled slightly, still a bit disoriented; he pushed her onto her knees on the chair, facing the cushioned back. Suddenly he was behind her, kneeling on the chair’s seat himself and pushing her forward so her chest pressed into the headrest. It was uncomfortable—the headrest’s support pushed the air from her lungs, and bit into her ribcage—and she protested loudly.
His answer was a sharp slap to her already sore rear-end, and another painful tug of her hair. Katara yelped and understood, then; this was how it was going to be. To get what she wanted, she had to play by his rules, at least for the moment. She held herself still, gasping for breath.
With one hand fisting again in her hair, the other at her hip, she felt him positioning himself behind her, nudging her thighs apart further with his own, his cock sliding between her legs in a tantalizing rocking motion. She liked the feeling of it against her and bucked up into him, moaning appreciatively.
“Take it easy,” Zuko growled; a warning against her impatience. He adjusted her to his liking, moving her limbs as if she were a pliant doll, pushing her so that her belly rested on the head of the chair, more of her exposed to him. He teased her, rubbing at the edges of her cunt with the head of his cock, eliciting whimpers of frustration. Then slowly, carefully, he slid inside, and her eyes nearly crossed from the pleasure of it.
Then he began to fuck her, and Katara had to bite her lip and nearly draw blood to hold back her shout. He wasn't as gentle with her, didn't treat her as delicately as he had the last time; he moved steadily and forcefully, his thrusting hips pushing her against the chair's headrest, one fist twined in her hair and one at her hip as he plowed into her.
Katara at first refused to believe the noises she heard in the room were hers—surely it wasn't she who was making those pitifully needy moans or cries—but when he withdrew completely from her body to roughly reposition her on the chair's back, she was horrified to hear a keening wail escape her own lips in response. He chuckled with amusement, and she felt her face burn as red as her tanned hide. He has me right where he wants me.
But Zuko wasn't quite as immune as he pretended he was, either. His breathing came hard and labored, and as he buried his cock inside her once more to the hilt he muttered a soft curse that ended in a groan. The hand that held her hip firmly in his grasp was shaking. She knew he could feel the heat from her punished ass-cheeks against his skin with every thrust, and the sight of them—red as they were, his hands leaving tan-colored prints when he touched them, must have pleased him to no end.
She knew he'd begun to reach his threshold when his grip on her hair lightened, his hand at her waist less of a vise and more of a caress; she could feel his body beginning to tremble behind her, his head bowed against her upper back as he tried to maintain control. His fingers sought her out once more, reaching under to stroke and massage, and before long Katara found herself plummeting down that hot, tight spiral of pleasure he'd brought her to before, barely muffling an ecstatic shout as she did. Zuko followed her quickly and helplessly over the edge, tumbling after in shocks and shudders, gasping and whispering her name so quietly she almost didn't hear it. She felt his hot liquid surging inside of her, scalding her with its heat.
They both went momentarily limp on the chair, trying to remember how to breathe. Zuko supported her weight from behind, but eventually disentangled himself and she took the opportunity to bend his seed from her body. She had scarcely finished doing it when he took her arm and dragged her toward the bed, where they both unceremoniously fell in a heap.
She looked at him with somewhat-horrified disbelief as they lay together side by side. “You're ready to do it again?” That myth about firebender stamina really did have some merit.
For the first time in days, she heard him laugh. “No.” He sputtered breathlessly. “Fuck. What do you think I am, a machine?”
“Oh.” So much for wish-fulfillment. “I didn't know why you brought me back to the bed—”
“To rest for a little bit. I might not be a machine, but we’re not done yet, you know.” He looked at her beside him and reached to brush an untamed lock of hair from her face, smirking as he did. “It might take me more than a minute, so you’ll just have to be patient.”
She scowled as though she hadn’t found his reply amusing. Her eyes continued to rove over him intently, curious. “You really weren’t angry with me.”
“Not really, I wasn’t.”
“Then why did you spank me so hard?” Katara reached a hand behind her to tentatively touch her still-sore flesh. “It still really hurts.”
“I told you; punishment.” He reached over her to touch her backside as well, barely brushing it with his fingers. “Your skin’s still hot,” he observed, and brought the hand back to hold it before her face. “Blow coldly on it.”
“On your hand?” She looked at him, confused.
“Just do it.”
She took a breath and exhaled slowly, conjuring ice, and coated his hand with a light sheen of frost. He placed it over her hip behind her again, pressing it against the cheeks of her ass. Katara hissed and shrank back at the stinging sensation. He held it firm, though, and after another moment she began to feel relief.
“Better?” Zuko asked, and she nodded. He moved closer to better place his cooling hand, pulling their bodies nearly flush up against one another’s. The look in his good eye was gentle, mirthful. It bewildered her.
He saw it. “You took to your punishment quite well, I’d say.”
“I still don’t see why I had to be spanked so hard,” she argued, bristling slightly. “I barely even slapped you.”
“You slapped my face. And someone had to get you in line.”
Although she knew he was playing somewhat, she hardened her eyes purposefully into pools of blue ice. “Let’s get something straight, here. I’m the one keeping you in line…not the other way around.”
“You wouldn’t know it from the tantrums you were throwing earlier today,” he remarked defiantly, a small gleam in his golden eyes.
“Well what else was I supposed to do when you ignore me and blow me off like you did, and—”
Zuko removed the hand that had been cupping her rear, and held it up between them. “Wait. You think I blew you off?” When she didn’t respond, he let loose a grin; Katara blinked in confusion.
“You think I wanted to leave for three days, to go off somewhere with Aang by ourselves, when I knew you were here waiting for me?” He shook his head against the pillow it rested on, his hair obscuring part of his scar. “Believe me, it was the furthest thing from what I wanted. But Aang had to learn firebending, and I had to get my own technique under control in order to teach him. I didn’t have any other choice.” The look in his eyes softened. “I would have rather stayed here and let you recoup more of your ‘penance’.”
She was as shocked by his confession as she was by his honesty about it. He’d wanted to stay; he had wanted to be here, with me, she realized. He wants me as much as I’m wanting him.
…Katara, you are a complete idiot.
And then, despite the fact that it had only been several minutes since their first romp, despite her sore bottom and the fact that Toph was probably awake and all the multitude of reasons why they shouldn’t, he reached for her again. This time instead of wriggling out of his grasp, she willingly gave in to it.
He lay over her, kissing her body, biting gently with his teeth and sometimes sucking, leaving a trail of kissmarks down her flesh. He nipped at her stomach and thighs, and she yelped and shrieked appreciatively. He stopped the rough play to lick her hungrily between the legs again—“I can never get enough of how you taste, here”—as she groaned and fisted her hands in his hair.
She spread her legs for him on her back and he slid inside, holding her close. He moved inside her slowly at first, watching her eyes, whispering to her, before gathering her knees over his arms and thrusting harder and faster. She watched the subtle, fleeting changes across his face as he did, fascinated with the light in his eyes, the shape of his lips, the curve of his brow as he furrowed it in concentrated desire. The expressions he made while he fucked her hard in his bed were the same as the ones she’d envisioned when she had pleasured herself alone. At the height, she reached behind and put her hands on his backside, grabbing his ass and pressing him even closer into her, as if she could force him in even deeper inside her.
***
He entreated her to stay in his bed with him until morning; when she said no and insisted it was final, he asked another question.
“Speaking of sleep…have you seen one of my pillowcases around anywhere?”
***
Hours after she had gone to him, shortly before the sun rose, Katara snuck back to her own room, a little more sore and no less confused about everything.
***
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The Penance Series