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Borealis: A Zutara Story	By : jaded_priceless Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality Views: 34026 -:- 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 List
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- 37
Chapter 35
Zuko continued to explain his ring as if he had never strayed from the subject. “This pond is the foundation of my family.”
“Do you see the rock beneath the tree and the bench on the other side of it?” Zuko asked quietly. Katara nodded and Zuko confessed, “I was conceived on that rock. Azula was conceived on the bench.”
He directed her attention back to the top of the ring, “The sun is in the sky. So are stars and clouds. Are the clouds obscuring the sun’s rays and starlight or are the sun’s rays and starlight peeking through them?”
Katara took the ring from his hand, “It looks like both.”
“It is both,” Zuko confirmed, “It’s to remind me that there will be dark days. When things aren’t very bright, but I have to remember that the light of hope keeps shining. It is to also a way to tell me not to let my judgment become clouded; that all things will be revealed so long as I search for the lights of wisdom, truth and knowledge.”
“Look at the rising dragon, it’s in the the sun’s rays and the light of all four stars. It’s another way of showing me don’t be afraid to look to others for guidance. The sun is setting and the stars are rising. The sun is in the west and one star is farther in the east. Uncle Iroh is the Dragon of the West so Lu Ten was the star that would be rising as he set. Using the position of the pond, the brightest star of one constellation is always visible in the north, Ursa Major – my mom. From the same point, the stars in the south change based on the time of year just as my father is an unknown constant,” Zuko said quietly.
“I’m not sure when she designed our rings and commissioned them but Azula and I both got ours on our tenth birthday. She was gone for Azula’s. Each year the jeweler sends me another part of the drawing with the explanation,” Zuko said lifting the ring case to show the framed papers beneath.
“Zuko these drawings are beautiful. Your mother was an exceptional artist,” Katara complimented running her fingers over the glass.
“She was. The jeweler said the ring still has more to be revealed, but some of it my mother did not want me to get until I was older. She’s still here watching over me and guiding me but I’m still so confused. I wish she could just talk to me,” Zuko said quietly. “I have so many questions, I know I’m doing the right thing, but I don’t think I’m going about it in the right manner. All I seem to do is hurt myself and the people around me. It’s worse now without Uncle Iroh’s wisdom. I just…”
Zuko closed his eyes, clenching his fist around the ring as he began speaking cryptically, “I’m sorry Katara. I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore, but I know what I’m trying to accomplish. The end result I want would make her happy, but I think she’d hate me for the way I am forced achieve it. I hate myself for the way I’m forced to achieve it, but now that it’s started I don’t know how to stop it without seeing it through to the end. I’m sorry you got caught up in all this. I’m sorry that I wasn’t stronger when I needed to be.”
“Zuko, what are you trying to accomplish?” Katara asked.
Zuko looked at her debating whether or not he could tell her the truth. I want to leave and become the Avatar’s Firebending instructor, defeat my father and my sister and help end the war and the suffering that it’s caused. He’d trusted her with what his father said about Nima and the Airbenders and the secrets of his signet. But she didn’t have a reason to doubt that. She had several reasons to doubt he really wanted to join their group. He couldn’t trust her with this, not yet. It wasn’t even something he could say aloud in the palace. Sometimes he wondered if it was even safe to think it.
Zuko caressed her cheeks with both thumbs “I promise I will tell you one day, but right now you wouldn’t believe me if I did. I know I haven’t given you a reason to trust me, but please believe me when I say my intentions are good and I have faith that you would help me if you thought you could believe that I was telling the truth.”
Katara’s forehead wrinkled in confusion - he trusted her, but didn’t think that she would trust him? It made sense considering that so far it appeared as though he’d been right about the nobles’ intentions and she’d been unwilling to believe him. After the things she’d heard and seen especially what one monster who had broken into his room looking for her had done to a seven year old girl she was starting to believe Zuko was the better alternative.
She still didn’t want to believe the crock that he was raping her for her own benefit but even if he was a horny bastard who only wanted her for bragging rights and to use her to break people’s faith in the Aang he was better than a sadist who hurt others simply to do so.
Katara nodded. She didn’t like the way Zuko was looking at her. It was as if he was drowning and the only person around to save him was her. She still didn’t trust him. She was only bidding her time until she killed him.
She’d told him that on several occasions, so why would he trust her?
Zuko realized how closely he was standing to her and took a step back, “Let me see your left hand Katara.”
She held it out and Zuko lifted the ring he’d received in his tenth birthday. It didn’t fit. He skipped to the one he received when he was twelve. It fit her ring finger, the one the people of the Earth Kingdom used for marriage. He palmed it and pulled out the most recent one he’d been sent. It too fit on his left ring finger. When he received it two years ago he’d worn it on his thumb. In a few years it would properly fit on his pinky where it belonged. He asked Katara to look around to see if there was anything that she wanted.
She looked around amazed but didn’t ask for anything so he closed the vault and led her to another room, “This chamber hasn’t been opened since the death of my great-great-grandmother. It is yours and so it everything in it. Open it, Katara.”
“I can’t open that. I’m not a Firebender!” Katara huffed.
Zuko smiled and pointed at the water flowing through the carvings in the door, “I know. Neither was she. That’s why the room hasn’t been opened in over a century.”
Katara’s eyes widened, “She was a Waterbender?”
“Yes and so was the mother of the Fire Lord she married. Her chamber and its contents now belong to you as well,” Zuko shrugged. “We’ve brought in Waterbenders before to try and open their doors, but all of them were unable to do so. I think you will succeed where they failed.”
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- 37
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Borealis: A Zutara Story