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The Spirit Lovers' Ritual	By : moviefan Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female > Katara/Zuko Views: 264 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter List
- 1-Part 1
- 2-Part 2
- 3-Part 3
- 4-Part 4
- 3
- 4
(A/N: IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ. Ok, so, here we go, the final installment of this story. It's been... an unique writing experience, something that definitely grew beyond what I had initially intended when I started it. I guess I can blame the plot bunnies for that. Now, I don't know how many of you read my Author's Notes or not, which is why I always capitalize my requests for them to be read when I have something important to say. I don't want to say it right now because spoilers, which is why I'm requesting that you read the Author's Note at the end after you finish. For now though, enjoy the fourth and final part of this story.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Part 4
They only slept about an hour, as impossible as that seemed with how dead tired Katara had been the previous night, or perhaps early morning would have been more accurate. However, that was apparently all the rest the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady required in order to fully rejuvenate Katara and Zuko. And while her body ached in the most delicious of ways the next morning, she also felt fully rested and at full strength when she woke. She also still had a certain spirit attached to her soul, as did Zuko.
Katara dismayed at their failure to complete the ritual, knowing that it meant that she would have to be further unfaithful to her husband. Her guilt was made worse when she recalled how Aang had requested that she and Zuko have completed the ritual by the next morning. And so, since they had somehow still awoken so early, they tried again, resulting in a steamy two hours love session that ended with the same unsuccessful results as the previous night. And then, because they both desperately needed one, they entered Zuko’s shower together in his attached bathroom, which led to another hour-long session that ended with the hot water running out and Zuko amplifying his body temperature to keep them both warm as they went at it.
After that, they knew they couldn’t put it off any longer, and so they both reluctantly headed out to meet their friends, finding them all gathered at the table in the dining hall. Her brother and Suki both looked very uncomfortable, and were looking anywhere but at her and Zuko, which only served to make Katara feel even more embarrassed. That was nothing, however, compared to the embarrassment she felt at the big, teasing grin that appeared on Toph’s face as she and Zuko entered the room, and she prayed the Earthbender would do them all a favor and keep her mouth shut.
Her gaze, however, landed on her husband, and the guilt she felt amplified tenfold when she saw that he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink last night. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zuko shift uncomfortable, and she had to resist the urge to start fidgeting herself. She kept her gaze on Aang though, feeling her heart break at the hopeful look on his face.
And then Toph had to open her mouth. “Well damn, I was going to ask how your guys’ night went, but based on the way Sugar Queen is walking, I can tell it went really well.”
That comment had not gone over well, and Aang showed her how much he didn’t appreciate her teasing remark by sending a powerful gust of wind her way that completely knocked over the blind Earthbender. Toph still went down laughing all the while.
Things hadn’t gotten better after that, as Katara and Zuko were left with no choice but to tell them that the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady were still taking up residents inside them. Aang, predictably, did not take the news well, and very nearly entered the Avatar State in his rage, his tattoos and eyes flickering with its glow.
“I asked you to have it done by today!” he raged at them, his voice distorting.
“Aang, we tried!” Katara told him, raising her voice to be heard over the heavy winds he was stirring up. “It’s not exactly something we can control!”
“The spirits told us that it’ll be more difficult for us since we’re not actually a couple!” Zuko added, clearly hoping this would pacify Aang.
It didn’t.
“Buffalo-bull shit!” he bellowed. “How do I know you didn’t deliberately prevent the ritual from being completed so you can continue to fuck my wife!? It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve betrayed us!”
At that point, it seemed that Toph decided to make amends for her earlier comment by getting involved. “You’re going too far, Twinkle-Toes! And my feet can vouch for them! They’re telling the truth; they really did try! In a way, you should see it as a good thing that Katara’s love for you is getting in the way of the ritual being completed; it shows where her heart truly lies despite everything. Now stop making a scene before the whole palace hears about this, unless you want everyone to find out you’re now a cuck!”
Fortunately, that seemed to give Aang pause, and he managed to calm himself down enough to prevent himself from fully entering the Avatar State and allow the winds to die down. “So what now?”
Katara and Zuko shared a look before Katara lowered her head guiltily. “We have no choice but to keep trying until we manage to complete the ritual.”
Aang’s eyes and tattoos briefly flashed again. “So I have to keep letting Zuko bed my wife!? Just how many times is it going to take!? Ten!? A hundred!? A thousand!?”
“It’ll take as many times as it needs to, Twinkle-Toes,” Toph told him. “And need I remind you that you only have yourself to blame for this since you were the one who insisted on doing the ritual without the foresight of what you being the Avatar might entail. They’re basically cleaning up your mess; you just don’t like what they have to do to do it. Maybe stop thinking about yourself, who literally has to sit back and do nothing for this, and think about what poor Sparky and Sugar Queen have to go through until they get it right. Can’t you tell just by looking at them how guilty they feel? You wanna make them feel worse? I’m sure that will help them complete the ritual.”
That seemed to successfully shut Aang up. At least for about thirty seconds before he let out a bellow of “Damn it!”, sending out a powerful whoosh of wind that knocked over everything in the room.
There was nothing to be done after that. They were stuck with the circumstances. Naturally, it was agreed to not let anyone else know what was going on, and so the fact that Katara and Zuko were harboring the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady inside themselves remained a closely guard secret. Every night though, Katara would slip into Zuko’s room for another night full of hot, orgasmic sex for hours on end, followed by an hour of some actual sleep before waking up to some early morning sex before they started the day.
The second night was just as much of a failure as the first one, as was the third, and the fourth. After the fifth one, however, Aang had had all he could take. He announced that he was going to go stay with Guru Pathik, hoping that the old man would be able to help him find peace with all this. He told them to send Sokka’s delivery bird, Hawky, with a message when they managed to complete the ritual, saying that it was too painful to stay here with what his wife and best friend were doing every night and him being disappointed every morning. Then he was soaring away on Appa, leaving his wife behind with her new lover.
Katara felt horrible about him leaving, but she reluctantly admitted that perhaps it was for the best. She’d been constantly trying to console him over the situation, only to find him inconsolable. Perhaps the old guru would be able to help him find the inner peace over this that she couldn’t seem to give him. Also, truth be told, it was rather awkward being around him with the Pained Lady inside her. Additionally, perhaps not having him around would reduce the guilt she felt since she wouldn’t need to constantly see his hurt face; an out of sight out of mind situation of sorts.
And so they went at it, every morning and night, and at points during the day where Zuko had time away from his duties. As mates, the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady seemed to be drawn towards each other, and so being inside Katara and Zuko, the two Benders were as well, feeling the spirits’ longing and desire for each other as their own.
They did it for as long as possible, as frequently as possible, trying to purge the spirits from their beings, but to no avail. It didn’t matter where they did it, or in what position or pace, they just couldn’t seem to reach the required level of intimacy necessary to complete the ritual.
They did make scattered progress though. Just like that time where they began to see through each other’s eyes and feel what the other felt, they reached that point several times; sometimes connecting even more than before, sometimes not as much. But they just couldn’t seem to get beyond that point, as if something were in the way or holding them back. On more than one occasion, they even let the spirits within them take complete and total control of their bodies while they remained mere passengers, but this too did not work; the spirits had even told them so in advance, but they’d tried anyway.
After the first week, a few days after Aang had left with Appa, Katara had grown desperate, and that night she had ended up giving Zuko her anal virginity. And while she had been surprised by how much she had enjoyed it after the initial discomfort of being taken there for the first time passed, this too failed to complete the ritual, though from that night on, they did occasionally incorporate anal into their love making every now and then.
None of this was enough though, no matter how out of her mind with pleasure she was brought to. Chain orgasms had become common, and Zuko at one point had even managed to allow her to experience the legendary one-hour orgasm she had always believed to be a myth, but not even this worked. There were times here orgasms were so intense that she quite literally thought that she might die or go mad from pleasure, however, she never did have another black out period like she had that first night thanks to the Painted Lady keeping her conscious, otherwise she suspected that would have happened quite frequently; it was simply too much of a sensory overload for her human limitations.
While she knew the effects of the ritual were in part related to the levels of pleasure she experienced, there was also no denying that a big part of it was strictly related to Zuko and his skills in the bedroom, not to mention their apparent compatibility. There was truly no denying that Zuko was a spectacular lover, able to bring her to climax practically every five minutes most of the time.
At the start of the third week, Zuko came up with an idea, and after a visit to the palace library, he obtained a copy of the Kama Sutra, hoping its contents would help them find the level of intimacy they needed. And so, over the next two weeks, they made their way through the ancient texts, and managed to get through the entire thing in full by the end of the fourth week. And as enjoyable as going through the book had been, it had still ultimately been in vain. Katara tried to look at the bright side of things though and told herself that at the very least she was learning new things in the bedroom that she would be able to bring back to her husband once this was all over.
At the start of the fifth week, they decided on a change of pace. After embarrassingly informing Iroh of their predicament, Zuko had temporarily left his uncle in charge of the Fire Nation while and Katara took a trip to the royal beach house on Ember Island for the week. The first two days of the trip, they didn’t even leave the bedroom, essentially having an extensively long sex marathon. The remaining five days were spent relaxing and enjoying themselves in addition to love making, which was the primary reason for the trip. Even then, they still rarely left the bedroom.
It almost felt like a honeymoon, and Katara couldn’t help but feel like she was getting an idea of what it would feel like to be married to Zuko; he would certainly make some lucky woman a very happy wife one day. And on their final night on the island, they had been walking along the beach, watching the sun set. It had led to a very heated love session right there on the beach with the waves crashing over them, their frantic coupling lasting long into the night before they finally went inside to continue their passionate tryst. And while the ritual still wasn’t completed, to their benefit, they had gotten particularly close that night to reaching their goal, at least according to the Painted Lady.
At the end of the week, they had returned to the Fire palace so Zuko could resume his duties, and things returned to how they had been during the four weeks prior to their trip, with passion-filled mornings and nights and stolen periods throughout the day. And throughout it all, they still managed to keep what was happening between them a secret from the palace guards and servants. As far as anyone else know, Aang was off handling Avatar duties while Katara had stayed behind as a diplomat to help Zuko with affairs involving the other nations; it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.
The closest they had come to completing the ritual had been on the night of the full moon. Katara had been extra passionate that night, unable to get enough of Zuko, and he had responded to her need with equal fervor, the two of them frantically getting lost in each other. But not even that had been enough. They had connected enough to be able to fully feel what the other felt throughout the entire session, which had made for a very strange but highly pleasurable experience.
As was natural with two new lovers, the more they did it, the less shy they became, the less awkward it became. There was nowhere on each other they hadn’t tasted or touched, the two of them getting to know the other’s bodies as intimately as their own. They grew more comfortable around each other and began understanding each other’s bodies, and the sex between them only continued to get better. But one thing that never changed was the constant guilt that Katara felt hanging over her. She knew that Zuko felt it too, and no matter how enjoyable the sex was, she knew that wasn’t going to change.
And at this point though, Katara was at a loss of what else they could do. Short of allowing herself to become pregnant with his child, she didn’t know how else she could further advance their intimacy. She spent a good amount of time contemplating it, trying to figure out what they were doing wrong or what else they could try. But no matter how much she thought about it, her mind kept returning to one specific thing.
“It’s our guilt, isn’t it?” she said out loud to the Painted Lady. “That’s why we can’t complete the ritual.”
It was the end of the fifth day of the seventh week since she had performed the ritual with Aang, and she was standing on the balcony attached to Zuko’s room, overlooking the Fire Nation. A few days before they had left for their trip to the royal summer home, she and Zuko had made love on this very balcony in the pouring rain. That had been one of the closest times they had gotten to completing the ritual. Not as close as the night of the full moon, but still pretty close, and still falling short of success.
And as she stood here now, watching the setting sun bathe the city in a golden light, she felt at peace and allowed her mind to wander. Her thoughts turned to her husband as she wondered how he was doing, and the guilt came in full swing. That had been what had led to her revelations that it was her guilt that was serving as a blocker of sorts to completing the ritual. For no matter how mind-blowingly pleasurable, no matter how many cardiac arrest inducing orgasms she had, the guilt was always there in the background, hanging over her. In fact, the more she enjoyed the sex, the more guilty she felt afterwards.
Thinking about it, the revelation she had come to felt like it should have been obvious, but it had taken her this long to finally acknowledge it. Or, no, rather, it was something she supposed she had known all along, but had managed to convince herself that she could move past it in order to do what she needed to do. She hadn’t wanted that to be the reason, because how did she move past it? Almost anything else she could have worked through, but how did she just shut off her feelings, to simply not feel guilty? To accept that her guilt was the problem felt like admitting to a problem that couldn’t be solved.
“It is,” the Painted Lady told her in response to her question. “But then, you already knew that; we even discussed it.” She sighed in Katara’s head. “It’s perfectly natural, even expected for you to feel guilty given your circumstances, but it is indeed ultimately the problem for why you and the Fire Lord can’t complete the ritual You’re meant to find full satisfaction and true intimacy with the ritual. The guilt you feel is acting as an obstacle that is preventing you from completely enjoying the experience the way you should, so you can’t reach the right state you need to be in to complete it. That’s the problem you’re facing. Until you’re able to rid yourself of that guilt, or at least distract yourself enough to not feel it for long enough, I’m afraid you won’t be able to complete the ritual.”
“How!?” Katara cried desperately. “How do I do that? How do I just… turn off my guilt? I love Aang, yet I’m sleeping with another man. How do I do that and not feel guilty?”
“Yes, that is the dilemma. It’s why I’ve been encouraging you to let go, to not think about your husband and completely give yourself over to the pleasure. It’s been in the hopes that you’ll be sufficiently distracted enough that you forget everything else and become so wrapped up with your lover that you won’t feel the guilt long enough for the ritual to be completed. That’s how you will find true satisfaction. It’s why you and the Fire Lord have gotten closer at certain time during your couplings, because you’ve been sufficiently distracted from your guilt during those periods.”
Katara considered this and she realized it made sense. It was during the times when she and Zuko truly got lost in each other that they began to connect more. But Aang was always there in the back of her mind, even if it was only subconsciously. And so the guilt was always there too in some capacity. And now she was having it confirmed that that was the real reason why all those attempts to complete the ritual failed.
“It’s why you and I have not had a problem merging,” the Painted Lady explained further. “You don’t feel any guilt or shame when sharing pleasure with me since you don’t feel like you’re betraying anyone, and because you agreed to the ritual in the first place. So there is nothing holding you back from fully enjoying our shared experience, which is why the two of us are able to merge without issue. And the same is true for my mate and the Fire Lord. But when it comes to you and him, the guilt is there, and you’re always feelings it; you both are. Not just for your infidelity, but because you got him involved with this as well. Even during the instances where one of you gets lost enough to not feel guilt, the other still does, so the ritual is not completed.”
That was quite the explanation, Katara couldn’t help thinking, but she supposed it made sense. And once again, she supposed that deep down she had known it all along. She just didn’t want to acknowledge it because if she didn’t feel guilty, then she really would feel like she had completely betrayed Aang in the truest sense. As long as she still felt guilty, then she could tell herself with absolute certainty that her loyalty did still ultimately belong to her husband.
And yes, she did also feel guilty for getting Zuko wrapped up in this mess as well, because she knew that he was beating himself up over not just sleeping with his best friend’s wife, but for enjoying it so much. It was a double-dose of guilt. So even if she managed to ignore one, there was still another form of guilt holding her back.
“So what do I do?” she asked desperately. “I’m basically stuck in a paradox. If I’m feeling guilty for cheating on Aang, but I have to cheat on him to complete the ritual, and my guilt is preventing me from completing the ritual, then how in Tui’s name am I supposed to complete the ritual?”
The Painted Lady sighed again; it was so strange how she was able to do that in her head. “That is the question, isn’t it? I’m afraid I don’t have the answer for that, Katara. I’ve tried to help however I can, but I’m afraid this is something you’ll have to work out for yourself. And not just you either, but the Fire Lord will have to as well. You’re not the only one who’s guilt is preventing them from fully enjoying the experience. As long as one of you allows their guilt to hold them back, you won’t complete the ritual.”
Well, that was just great, and incredibly unfair. So even if she somehow managed to stop feeling guilty, if Zuko still did, then it wouldn’t matter. It was beginning to feel like they were never going to complete this stupid ritual. Were they really going to be stuck in this situation forever? Well, no, not forever, but until the day they died?
At that thought, Katara was suddenly hit by a big wave of mental exhaustion over this whole thing. It made her want to curl into a ball and just give up, but she knew that wasn’t an option. She and Zuko needed to get the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady out of themselves and return them to the spirit world; they had been away from their duties far too long already. Spirits had important roles to play, and being away from them for too long could have long lasting consequences. So now Katara was feeling guilty for keeping the Painted Lady away from her duties on top of everything else.
“I’m just so tired,” she told the spirit. “I’m tired of feeling guilty. I shouldn’t have to, it’s not fair. I didn’t ask for this. Zuko didn’t ask for this. We’re just… stuck. Why should we feel bad for something that’s not our fault and beyond our control? I’m just… so tired…”
The Painted Lady didn’t respond to that, choosing to let Katara be alone with her thoughts; figuratively speaking since she was in her head. And Katara did indeed get lost in her thoughts as she stared out at the Fire Nation as the sun descended upon it, the day’s light fading out for what promised to be another passion-filled night of hot, sweaty, mind-blowing sex with someone other than her husband. Already her body was instinctually filling with anticipation with the promise of pleasure she knew was coming. It almost made her feel like some kind of trained animal; she certainly felt like a wild animal in heat rutting away with her mate when she and Zuko were going at it.
From within her, she felt the Painted Lady detect the approach of her mate long before she heard Zuko coming. She kept her eyes on the scene before her though as she felt him come up behind her and embrace her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She let out a sigh. “Nothing. Just standing here, enjoying the view, thinking.”
“Mmm,” he muttered, and stroked her long, loose hair. For reasons she didn’t know why and didn’t want to think about, ever since her hair had unraveled from her braid that first night they’d made love, she had worn it loose like this; it had just felt… right for some reason. “What about?”
She sighed again as she rested back against him. Their positions were undoubtedly intimate ones. And why not? They were lovers in every sense of the word, regardless of their situation; there was no point in pretending they weren’t, especially in light of what they both knew would be happening in a few minutes. It was why she was standing there in only a red silk robe instead of her actual clothes or her nightwear.
“Just… everything,” she replied. “It’s been a lot.”
“I know what you mean,” he agreed, nuzzling into her neck. “It still feels wrong. It is wrong, no matter how much I want you.”
No matter how much they wanted each other, she couldn’t help thinking. Her body was craving his as well, and not just because they were housing the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady, who wanted each other, which only added to the problematic guilt they felt. Already she was beginning to grow wet just from his presence alone. It had long since reached the point where her mind associated Zuko with pleasure, and her body naturally began to prepare itself for what the delights the night would bring.
“That’s just it though,” she said in a hushed voice, already rubbing her legs together in anticipation. “It is wrong. We know it’s wrong. We’ve always known. But we’re still stuck with it. And I hate it. Not just because of what we have to do though. I hate feeling bad about something we’re meant to enjoy. That we have to enjoy. It really messes with my head, to have to enjoy something I naturally should but know I shouldn’t.”
“I know,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck, and Katara tilted her head to give him better access.
There was no point in pretending what was going to happen wasn’t going to happen. Coyness and nervousness were no longer a factor and were things of the past, they simply did what they had to do… and then felt bad about it afterwards. And that, she now had confirmation, was the problem, because it was essentially ruining the experience of the ritual, which was why they couldn’t complete it. But how to get around that was the question.
Zuko’s hands were on her hips as he pressed kisses to her neck, and he slipped them around to her front to take hold of the ties of her robe, slowly pulling on them. Anticipation filled her as her robe loosened and then fell open, the front parting to expose her breasts and nether region to the evening air. It was a good thing they were high up enough and the balcony was positioned in such a place where they couldn’t be seen by anyone down below.
With her front exposed, Zuko’s hands began exploring her. He began caressing her flat stomach before bringing one hand up to gently fondle her breast. His other hand moved between her legs to find her already wet and hot for him. He stroked her a few times with his middle finger before pushing it inside, and she exhaled in pleasure as he caressed her inner walls, making her wetter than she already was.
Katara’s own hands had been gripping the parapet, but as he stroked and caressed her, her own hands went on the move. One came up behind her to tangle in his soft hair as he nuzzled her neck. The other reached for his hardness poking into her backside. She could feel that he too was wearing a robe and she reached inside, extracting his length. As she stroked him, that same hand nudged the back of her robe to the side more and more, until she could press his hot flesh to her rear, and he began grinding against her backside.
Once again demonstrating his skills, Zuko was able to bring her to climax in a matter of minutes with his fingers alone. Katara’s legs gave out and she had to catch herself on the parapet. Zuko helped to hold her up as well until she regained enough strength in her legs to stand on her own. And when she could, she turned to him with a serious look on her face.
“Zuko, we need to talk.”
He raised an eyebrow curiously. “Ok, what about?”
She hesitated a few moments before closing her eyes. “I’m tired of this. I’ve been talking with the Painted Lady, and I just can’t take it anymore.”
He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke next, she heard the confusion in his voice. “I don’t understand. What do you mean you’re tired? Of what? Trying to complete the ritual?”
She opened her eyes again. “In a sense. What I really mean is, I’m tired of feeling bad about something that’s not our fault and not something we can control. The guilt is crushing me, and I can’t take it anymore.” She gave him a serious look. “You feel it too, I know you do. The guilt, the self-hatred of what we’re doing. I’m cheating on my husband and you’re sleeping with your best friend’s wife. It’s not something either of us would ever do, but it’s something we have to do, and the guilt is tearing us apart, even though Aang knows about it.”
She watched as he averted his eyes, the very guilt she was referring to written all over his face. “Yes… it is…”
Katara let out a deep sigh. “You know that that’s the problem, right? We’re letting our guilt hold us back from fully enjoying the experience of the ritual. That’s why we can’t seem to complete it. We have to fully enjoy having sex to complete the ritual, but us feeling bad for having sex is preventing us from fully enjoying the sex to complete the ritual. It’s a vicious circle, a paradox.”
“Yeah…” he said again, bashfully rubbing the back of his head. “But what else can we do? Are you saying that you want to stop trying? Just keep the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady inside us indefinitely? Can we even do that? And what spiritual repercussions would that have on the world if we do?”
For the next few seconds, Katara simply stared at him. He’d basically hit the nail on the head for what the real problem was. The inconvenience of having another a passenger in her body aside, they had the world to think about. True, the world had once turned before the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady had come into being, but that was no longer the case. The two spirits had taken up roles and had been maintaining those roles for the world’s sake, and the world now needed them. It was essentially the same reason Yue had become the new moon spirit, because the world needed her to when the previous one was killed by Zhao.
With a sigh, she turned around to stare at the Fire Nation as dusk settled over it. “No. We can’t stop. They’ve been kept from their duties for too long already. The ritual was only supposed to be in effect for a few days at most, not for weeks on end. We have to keep trying to get them out of us. But…” she turned to face him again, “I’m tired of beating myself up over it. I’m tired of feeling guilty for something that I have to do when it’s not something I would ever do under any other circumstances. And…” she glanced away shyly, feeling heat fill her cheeks, “and I’m tired of feeling bad for enjoying it.”
That had been harder to say than she expected. With the way Zuko was able to make her scream in pleasure and cum over and over again, it was no secret between them just how much she enjoyed their sex, how much they both enjoyed it. It had been the most incredible sex of her life, even without the ritual’s effects. And while she’d voiced how good he felt during the sex itself, she had never straight-up admitted out loud to him just how much she enjoyed it. The admission brought forth an onslaught of the very guilt she had been referring to.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” the Painted Lady told her. “You’re not cheating on your husband by choice, and the enjoyment of your copulation with the Fire Lord is simply your body’s natural reactions. He is indeed a highly skilled lover, even without my mate’s contribution and influence, or the ritual’s affects. Your body is acting as it is meant to, and you should not have to feel bad about it anymore than you should when you feel pain for falling and scrapping your knee.”
‘Please stay out of this,” Katara begged. “This is hard enough as it is.”
She returned her gaze to Zuko to see him blushing as well. He looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. And based on some of the looks that his crossed his face, he was also speaking to the Blue Spirit.
“Aren’t you?” she asked in reference to what she had said, trying to encourage him to voice his thoughts. “Feeling tired of feeling guilty?”
Still blushing, he let out a sigh. “Yes, I am. I hated myself for a long time during my banishment, and it’s not fun doing it again.” Her gave her an almost pleading look. “But what else can we do?”
She chewed on her bottom lip in discomfort. “We stop. All this time we’ve been having sex with a goal in mind, and we’ve been feeling bad about it. But it’s been seven weeks, Zuko, almost eight. Clearly, it’s not working with the way we’ve been going about it.”
He cocked his head to the side questioningly. “So what do you suggest?”
She took a deep breath. “Just what I said. We stop. We’ll still be lovers, and we’ll keep going as we’ve been going, but we stop trying to make it happen. I mean, who knows when we’ll manage to complete the ritual. It might be tomorrow, it might be weeks, months, or even years before it finally happens. Are we going to keep beating ourselves up over what we’re doing for all that time? Just keep feeling guilty? Because I don’t think I can bear it. So instead of pressuring ourselves with it and feeling bad about it, we’ll just do what we’ve been doing, and it’ll happen when it happens. That will at the very least take away the pressure of expectations and the disappointment of when we fail.”
She had been thinking about this for some time now, and had also determined that, aside from the guilt, this was another reason they couldn’t complete the ritual. It was created with the intention of being an enjoyable experience, something natural between two lovers. She and Zuko had been treating it as a chore, one with an end goal they were trying to reach. An enjoyable chore with pleasurable benefits, yes, but a chore all the same. If they stopped thinking of it as such, if they stopped trying to force the end result and just let things play out naturally, then maybe someday that goal would be achieved.
Next, she braced herself for what she had to say next. “So, no more sex with the intention of ending the ritual. Instead, we’ll just do it because we both want to. I know you desire me, Zuko, and… I desire you as well. So we’ll act on our desires and let that be our motivation for having sex instead of thinking of it as something we need to do.”
“But it’s wrong,” he argued. “You’re married to Aang. No matter how much I want you, I would never–”
“Nor would I,” she interrupted, knowing what he was going to say. “But since our situation forces us to, we’re basically being given a free pass that we have no choice but to take. So, we’ll take it. But rather than looking at it as something we have to do, let’s just focus on the fact that it’s what we want to do. Not the affair part, because we would never do that, but the want for each other part. You want me and I want you, plain and simple. So we’ll act on that rather than on the obligation to fulfill the ritual. And whenever it happens, be it tonight or years from now, then that’s when it happens.”
She hated that it was coming to this, but she was at a loss of what else to do, and she was sick of feeling bad about it. And she meant to convey this to him.
Reaching up, she cupped his cheek. “And no more feeling guilty. Not about this affair, because it really isn’t one, and not about enjoying what we do together, or for our desire for each other, because those are just natural things. I just can’t do it anymore, and I’m tired of feeling bad about it and of having you feel bad about it. It’s not fair to us, and it’s not right that we punish ourselves over it. So I’m done feeling guilty, and the same should be true for you too.”
“You speak wise words, girl,” Zuko, or rather, the Blue Spirit, told her.
“Shut up,” the actual Zuko said immediately after. He then gave Katara a serious look. “Are you really sure about this, Katara? We’ll basically be committing ourselves to each other as lovers for an undetermined amount of time. Are you really ok with not being with Aang for that long? I know neither the Blue Spirit or the Painted Lady will allow the two of you to be together while she’s inside you.”
“Of course I’m not ok with it!” she insisted. “I love Aang, I want to be with him. I don’t want to cheat on him, and I never would, no matter how much I may want someone else or find them attractive. But he and I chose to do the ritual, and now we must deal with the consequences. So what’s the alternative? The same situation, only we keep feeling bad about it? What good will that do anyone? All that’s going to do is make us miserable on top of everything else, and we shouldn’t have to suffer that, plus it’s only going to hold us back from completing the ritual. So we can either continue what we’ve been doing while hoping that the next time will be it and feeling bad for what we’re doing and for enjoying what our bodies are meant to enjoy, or we just put all that aside and accept and do this naturally.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “The Painted Lady has been telling me to give into my desires and not feel bad about them. And while I have been giving into them, I still viewed them as a chore and something to feel bad about rather than simply acting on them because I want to, and I’ve been allowing myself to feel guilty for them.”
“Another reason I’ve been telling you not to think of your husband,” the Painted Lady told her. “It’s contributing to your guilt, and thus holding you back further. I haven’t been telling you this out of selfishness or insensitivity to you or your husband, it’s been to try and help you complete the ritual.”
Katara ignored her and looked back at Zuko again. “I just can’t take it anymore. So I’m done. Done feeling guilty, done denying myself, done feeling bad for enjoying what I’m naturally meant to, and done trying to force something that clearly can’t be forced. I can’t keep dwelling on Aang and feeling guilty about being stuck in this, nor can I punish myself for my body’s natural reactions. I’m just so tired of it.” Stroking his cheek, she gave him a questioning look. “Aren’t you?”
Zuko stared at her for a long while after that. Every so often, his expression would shift for a few seconds, suggesting that he and the Blue Spirit were talking, but Katara had no idea what about, and if the Painted Lady’s bond with her mate let her know anything, she wasn’t telling Katara anything.
“Yes,” he finally said. “It is very tiresome. And painful. Simply desiring you is one thing; it’s not something I can control, but it is something I can ignore. Having no choice but to act on those desires, and feeling guilty for doing so though, it’s so taxing. I’m tired of hating myself for it, especially after having hated myself for so many years already during my banishment. And worrying about how I’m hurting Aang, wondering how this will affect my friendship with him, and with you, it’s so stressful. Not to mention the pressures of trying to complete the ritual and feeling bad for not being able to on top of everything else, it makes me feel like a failure in addition to it all.”
He briefly and awkwardly glanced away. “And yeah, there’s also feeling bad for enjoying the sex between us. I’ve been hating myself for that too. Thinking about it, it’s no wonder we haven’t been able to complete the ritual with all this hanging over us. It’s all just too much; I don’t know how long I can take feeling all this guilt, but I know we can’t stop.”
She gave him a sad smile. “So then we’ll stop everything else. Stop worrying about it, stop acting like we’re doing something wrong, stop trying to rush to end it, stop beating ourselves up over it, stop everything. Instead, we’ll just accept it and go along with it. Let things play out naturally with no expectations, and when it happens, it happens, and we’ll put all this behind us. But until then, there’s really nothing else we can do, so we just have to make the most of it. And why shouldn’t we? We’re being forced into this after all, so why not reap the benefits, so to speak? You desire me and I desire you; we’ll just go with that and set aside everything else. It’s time we thought about ourselves for a change. I know it sounds horrible and selfish when I put it that way, but it’s what we have to do, the only real option left to us.”
He looked into her eyes, and she saw the guilt in them. “Can we really do that? Just ignore everything and accept this without allowing ourselves to feel bad? Is it possible to just turn off our feelings?”
It felt like they were just talking in circles now; stalling most likely. It almost felt like they had gone back to that first night, and in a way, they had. Their relationship was changing once again, taking another turn. How that would impact their attempts to complete the ritual, Katara didn’t know, but she had made the decision not to worry or beat herself up over it anymore.
Stroking his cheek, she brought up her other hand as well to gently clasp his face. She continued to look into his eyes as she gave him a serious look. “Kiss me, Zuko,” she told him in a hushed voice. “Kiss me because you want to, not because you have to. And because… I want you to.”
His gaze moved to her lips, then returned to her eyes, and she could see desire burning in them. Yes, something had definitely shifted, and it was resonating within both Katara and the Painted Lady as well, causing her to grow unbelievably wet. Zuko’s own and came up to cup her cheek as well. They stared at each other for a few moments, then something seemed to ignite in Zuko, and he leaned in and kissed her, practically slamming his lips to hers.
It was as if an explosion had gone off between them, and suddenly they were kissing furiously, practically devouring each other’s mouths, unable to stop. Lips and tongues moved against each other, hands aggressively exploring. Katara began clawing at Zuko’s robe, tearing at the material and practically ripping it open. Her hands began sliding over his chest, admiring the hardness of his muscles. She pushed his robe off his shoulders, wanting nothing to obstruct her touch, and Zuko briefly dropped his arms, letting his robe fall to the ground, leaving him completely bare.
He didn’t even bother removing her robe. Leaving it hanging open, he kissed his way down her neck, over her breasts, taking a nipple into his mouth, sucking and swirling his tongue around the hardened nub as his hand aggressively fondled her other one. Katara licked her lips and closed her eyes, letting her mouth fall open in a gasp as she delighted in his touch. The guilt began creeping into the background of her mind, but she aggressively shoved it aside, telling herself that she wasn’t going to let herself feel bad about this anymore or ruin the experience for her, and she focused entirely on the pleasant sensations he was giving her. And besides, if she was going to be made to feel guilty no matter what, shouldn’t she at least get the most out of this?
Zuko paid significant attention to her breasts with his hands and mouth, switching around which one got which kind of treatment. Eventually though, he began kissing his way down over her stomach, and Katara’s breath hitched every time he pressed a kiss closer and closer to her dripping center. And when his mouth finally moved over her, she threw back her head and cried out loudly.
Leaning back against the parapet, she spread her legs, one of her hands pressing against the back of his head. His lips and tongues worked their magic against her core, causing her to pant and moan. Her head rolled around on her shoulders as his tongue licked and probed her, making her juices flow. In her head, the Painted Lady moaned along with her as they enjoyed the wonders of Zuko’s mouth driving them crazy. And when he added his fingers into the mix, she felt as if she would lose her mind.
When her orgasm hit, she cried out so loudly she was sure all of the Fire Nation heard her, but she couldn’t be bothered to care right now. Zuko proceeded to lap up her juices afterwards, but even when her orgasm came to an end, she stayed in a heightened state of arousal. Zuko had apparently reached his limit as well, and rose to his feet, seeking out her lips again. She tasted herself against his lips as her tongue wrestled against his, pressing her hands to his chest, not in an attempt to push him away, but to feel his muscles flex against her hands.
Zuko’s own hands took hold of her bottom and he lifted her up, causing a surprised gasp of excitement to escape her, and her arms circled around his neck, holding on for dear life. He set her down to sit on top of the parapet, which was just low enough for him to get into position. Katara spread her legs wider, feeling his hardness press against her wet opening, and he pushed inside her. Audible groans escaped them both as he easily slid inside, and Katara was filled to the brim.
A feeling of completion filled Katara as she held him in her inner-most being. Despite his bigger size from her husband, after all this time, her body had adapted to his size, her muscles and inner walls adjusting themselves to fit him, as if her insides had reshaped themselves specifically for his cock, making a home for him inside her. She tried not to think of the implications of that, fearing that he had ruined her for any other an, namely her husband, but she cast such concerns aside and simply enjoyed the feel of him inside her as he began moving.
Her legs came up and wrapped around his waist, and she used her heels to help pull him into her as he rapidly thrusted away, grunting every time his hips met hers as she released moans in unison. Her arms remained wrapped tightly around his neck as she rested her chin on his shoulder, both to keep their bodies in contact and so she wouldn’t fall backwards off the balcony. She completely trusted that he wouldn’t let her fall, but the danger added an extra layer of excitement that sent her arousal to new heights, making her feel as of Zuko were her very life line.
Zuko’s hands remained on her lower back, both to prevent her from falling and to pull her against him as he thrusted into her. The force of his thrusts caused her robe to slide off her shoulders and drop down her back, but her arms through the sleeves kept it on. He attacked her exposed skin with his mouth, causing her to pant and moan, his hips never losing their rhythm.
Digging her nails into his back and her teeth into his shoulder, Katara squeezed her eyes shut against the overwhelming pleasure. Hearing him groan in response to the stinging sensations she was causing served to excite the further, and she squeezed her inner walls around his length as it bumped against her cervix again and again.
Her orgasm hit her hard, and her teeth released his skin as she threw her head back and cried out her pleasure. The Painted Lady was crying out with her, and then they were one, lost in bliss as a single mind. As her orgasm caused her head to spasm, she practically fell backward from the arching of her back, with only her limbs snaked around Zuko and his arms around her waist preventing her from falling to her death.
They were a far cry from finished though. She and the Painted Lady did not separate when their climax ended, remaining one while lost in the heat of passion. The single being they had become though pulled herself upright and unhooked her legs from around him. She pushed him back some to give herself some room, feeling his hardness leave her depths, before sliding off the parapet and dropping to her knees. With zero hesitation, she grabbed hold of his length and took him into her mouth. A mixture of his taste and her own exploded on her tongue as she began sucking and bobbing her head.
Zuko groaned loudly, one hand going to the back of her head, pushing it against him as she took in his length. For the first minute or two, it bumped against the back of her throat before she began swallowing it down, and then she began smoothly moving it in and out of her throat. One of her hands grasped his hip while the other reached for his hand that wasn’t on the back of her head. She grasped it tightly, their fingers interlocking as she took him in fully, her lips sliding over his length from his base to the bottom of his cock-head as she breathed through her nose when her throat was clear.
When her jaw grew tired, she made to pull off him, and he released the back of her head to allow her to do so. She took several deep breaths she desperately needed, but she needed him more and got to her feet. Zuko apparently needed her just as badly. He reached for her and pulled her towards him, their lips meeting in a shearing kiss that had her toes curling.
Grasping her ass-cheeks, he thrusted into her, and the merged being of Katara and the Painted Lady broke the kiss to gasp loudly. Keeping his hands on her bottom, Zuko pulled her against him as he rapidly thrusted into her. Her own hands mimicked his placement, pulling him into her with every thrust, causing her to rise up onto her tiptoes. Their lips found each other once more, their tongues engaging as they thrusted against each other, just two lovers lost in the heat of passion.
The next time her climax hit, Zuko was right there with her. She released his bottom and instead hugged him to her as tightly as she could as she screamed into his mouth. Zuko held their hips together as his cock began spurting inside her, the strong, hot streams blasting against her inner walls, almost making her feel like her insides were burning in the most pleasant way.
They somehow remained standing, their forms locked together in their shared climax. And when their high came down and Katara’s crumbling psyche reformed, she and the Painted Lady had separated once more. Their kiss broke apart as they panted heavily, and they stared into each other’s eyes for a long while afterwards, feeling each other’s hearts beat rapidly against their touching chests.
Strangely, there was a sense of peace that Katara felt. In the past, during pauses in their love making, or when they finished, she had been wracked with guilt for her infidelity, made worse for how pleasurable it had been. This time though, while the guilt was still there, it was substantially less. She’d also allowed the guilt consume her in the past, feeling as if she deserved it. This time though, she shoved it aside, telling herself not to feel guilty, that she shouldn’t have to, that she deserved to feel the euphoria in this act she’d had no choice but to do.
It helped, tremendously, and maybe, with enough time, she could stop feeling guilty entirely. Or at least allow herself to get caught up in the moment enough to not feel it. And with some luck, that would be enough to complete the ritual, even if that was no longer something she was pushing for and trying not to think about it. If it happened, great, if not, well, then she would just go on, take things one day at a time until it did happen.
As she and Zuko continued to stare at each other, she saw concern and questioning appear in his gaze. She gave him a small smile before leaning in and kissing him. She felt him still hard inside her, despite him having just cum, a cause likely due to the Blue Spirit. But that was fine, the night was still young after all. And so, she took his hand in hers and began making her way to the bed, leading him along.
She stopped by the bed and turned to face him. Slipping off the robe, she tossed it aside, then stepped back to sit on the bed. Leaning back on her forearms, she scooted back to the center of the bed, then crooked a finger at him in a come-hither gesture. Zuko took a deep breath and crawled up onto the bed and over to her. She twisted her body so she was laying down with her head on the pillow and reached for him as he came down and blanketed her with his body. Her arms wrapped around him and their lips met.
They kissed leisurely as they ran their hands over each other. It was as pleasant as always, but there was definitely a newfound intimacy that had been lacking before. Was it because they were acting more on what they wanted to do rather than what they had to do? Could such a shift in perspective really have made such a difference? Was this maybe the key to completing the ritual? Was it really such a simple thing?
No, she wouldn’t think about it. That’s what they had decided on, to not think about it or try and force things, to just go with the flow and let things play out naturally. And she wouldn’t feel bad about it or guilty for what she was doing. Her desires were natural, her enjoyment of sex was natural, and while she would otherwise never cheat on her husband, since she had to, she wouldn’t beat herself up over it anymore. She was done with the guilt, she was just done, allowing herself to go numb to it after feeling it for so long. It was going to take some effort to do so, but she was trying, and she could tell that Zuko was too.
“Tell him,” the Painted Lady told her. “You’re on the right track. Tell him what you want, and don’t be ashamed or feel bad about it. Be honest with him, and with yourself about what you want.”
Breaking the kiss, Katara looked up at Zuko, letting her open desire for him be displayed on her face. “I want you, Zuko. I want you inside me.”
She felt her stomach twist with unease. While she had confessed her attraction and want for him before, it had been a simple acknowledgment, one she had been forced to admit. This was the first time she had so openly and honestly expressed her want for him to such an extent. Guilt pricked at her, but she pushed it aside and focused on the moment.
The now familiar look in Zuko’s eyes that told her he and the Blue Spirit were communicating with each other briefly before his expression softened. “I want you too.”
She stroked his cheek. “Then have me.”
He shifted above her, nudging her legs open. He nestled between her thighs, his hard length resting against her slit, and he rubbed himself against her entrance. But as he made to enter her, the head of his cock beginning to part her nether-lips, she suddenly reached up and pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him.
“Wait,” she told him softly. “I want to ride you.”
He looked at her for a few moments before nodding and rolling off her, lying down next to her instead. Katara sat up and threw a leg over him, moving to straddle him. She took long deep breaths as she stared down at him, his length resting against her groin. She leaned down over him and licked his lips before pressing a kiss to them, then sat up once more and reached down to take hold of him. She rubbed him against her entrance a few times before lifting herself up and inserting him.
She’d ridden him countless times during the past seven plus weeks, forward, backwards, sideways, and otherwise, but as she sank down onto him, she was very much reminiscent of that first night. The feel of him filling her as her weight bore down on him took her breath away and made her shiver as she splayed her hands across his chest.
“Great Yue,” she whispered, relishing in the feel of completion it gave her. “Oh, spirits, you always feel so perfect.”
“You too,” Zuko whispered back. “You feel incredible; utter perfection.”
In the past, they’d done their best to reframe from making such comments to each other, though sometimes such remarks would slip out while in the heat of the moment. But it seemed that with their new perspective on how to go about things from now on, the words flowed freely, and they spoke their truths to each other.
Zuko began running his hands up and down her legs before they settled on her hips. Katara took several deep breaths as she stared down at him. Then she began moving on him. Zuko groaned in response and helped guide her into a rhythm that made her whimper. They moved together, her rocking against him and him pushing his hips up into her. It was familiar and pleasurable, but also somehow felt… more.
“That’s because you’ve released yourself,” the Painted Lady told her. “I was hoping for this all this time. It didn’t matter how much I tried to convince you, until you stopped punishing yourself and let yourself be free, this was out of reach.”
“Then free yourself as well,” Katara replied. “Do what you will with us. Take part as well.”
With permission granted, the Painted Lady did indeed begin to partake in their sex. Katara’s hip movements took more of a swaying, circular motion as she moved them forward and back and side to side as the spirit took part in their love making, and she began to run her hands over her body; the Painted Lady’s doing.
Katara felt the spirit call out to her mate to take part as well, and Zuko’s hands left her hips as, Katara assumed, the Blue Spirit took charge of them and began caressing her stomach, her sides, her legs, her breasts. With his touch taking over, Katara, or rather, the Painted Lady, tangled her hands in her hair, gathering it up as she moved on Zuko in a manner that could almost pass for an erotic dance.
“Spirits, you feel so good,” Katara whispered subconsciously as she moved on top of him.
She let nothing hold her back this time, in more ways than she ever had before. She touched and she teased him, not just for her own desire or to bring him pleasure, but because she wanted to give him pleasure. Not in a way to return the favor of what he had done for her, not to fulfill her own desires, but solely because she wanted him to feel good, and for no other reason. It gave an additional sense of intimacy that hadn’t been there before.
Despite having gotten used to the Painted Lady, and she also supposed the Blue Spirit, being present and getting involved with their sex quite often, it still felt strange to have the spirits take part. But as they proceeded to copulate, their presence was almost forgotten as Katara began to lose track of which touches and which feelings were hers and which were the Painted Lady’s as their shared sensations seamlessly blended together. And then came their mergence as they found their release together, but the sex simply continued on once they came apart as if this were a perfectly natural thing for them now.
But then a few minutes after her latest orgasm, another sensation began to overtake her. She hadn’t experienced it as much, but she recognized it as her and Zuko syncing up. She began catching shadows of the sensations he was feeling, her vision blending into a combination of what she and him were seeing, picking up traces of what he was hearing, and then other sensations began falling into play as well.
Yes, they had experienced this connection before quite a few times, and the Painted Lady had acknowledged it as progress in what should be happening with the ritual. But Katara didn’t think about it, she simply allowed herself to experience it and not worry about whether they would complete the ritual or not, to just enjoy it for what it was.
Only it didn’t stop. The connection got stronger and stronger, and after a few minutes, they reached the same feeling of oneness they had reached on the night of the full moon, where she was feeling and experiencing everything as if she were Zuko on top of what she herself was already feeling. She could feel her own weight on top of him, feel her own hands running over his body, feel her own walls squeezing his length, the sweat trickling down his skin, the heavy intakes of air as he breathed, the rapid beating of his heart, her own perspiring skin beneath his hands as he touched her.
And as she felt all this, she knew he was feeling it too in reverse, feeling everything that she felt. And that too was reflected back at her, feeling what she felt him feeling. She felt him feel what she felt reflected back at her in the same way she did with the Painted Lady. She felt him feel his hands as they moved, one going up to grasp her breast, the other going between her legs to where they were joined to begin making small circles over her clit with his thumb and applying pressure.
She gasped at what she felt when he did it on her end, and she felt him feel what she felt as if he were her. Her inner walls clenched around his length in response, and they both let out groans as she felt the clenching sensations he felt around a phantom cock she didn’t possess. It was such a strange feeling, experiencing what the other felt as if they were them, and that was stacked on top of what they already felt themselves to boot, and the same rang true for the spirits within them.
It would have been embarrassing, knowing that he was feeling what she felt and feeling what he felt, but it was all too pleasurable for any form of embarrassment to register. The combined, amplified, and shared stimulation would have resulted in a complete sensory overload that Katara knew would have caused her to pass out, but the Painted Lady kept her conscious, letting her experience everything without mercy.
Suddenly sitting up, Zuko wrapped on arm around her, pressing a hand to her lower back to help push her against him as she rocked her hips. His other hand roughly grasped her breast as his mouth latched onto the nipple of her other breast. Katara moaned, but wasn’t sure if it was a result of what she was feeling, what he was feeling, or both. They were blending together in a swirl of sensation that was becoming impossible to distinguish which of them was feeling what.
She, or rather, the Painted Lady, wrapped her arms around Zuko’s head, holding his face to her chest. She ran her hands through his hair, feeling a phantom caress in her own hair that wasn’t actually happening, marveling at the shared experience. Zuko released her nipple and lifted his head, and they shared a kiss, almost making it feel as if she were kissing herself. She began thrusting against him more aggressively as she cupped his face, and they pressed their foreheads together as they panted in each other’s mouths.
They were syncing up even more than before. She could feel his breathing, feel his heartbeat, and they fell in alignment with hers until they were breathing together, their hearts beating as one. Another orgasm was coming, and she let out a loud moan and released him to lean back, resting her hands back on the mattress to hold herself up as she thrusted against him furiously. Zuko reached back for leverage as well to thrust back at her, keeping his other hand on her hip to aid in their movements.
“You’re getting there,” the Painted Lady told her as she moaned in Katara’s head. “This is the most progress the two of you have made yet.”
“Stop,” Katara practically begged. “I don’t want to think about it. I just want to enjoy. Just let me feel.”
The Painted Lady fell silent, either to fulfill Katara’s request or to not interrupt the progress that had been made. Katara pushed any thoughts related to the ritual and anything else aside and simply focused on the exquisite feeling racing through her and her lover. Her orgasm was getting closer, and she reached between her legs to where they were joined and began rubbing her clit. Zuko hissed in response, feeling the sensation himself, his fingers digging into her hip. And as she touched herself, she felt the Painted Lady and her unite.
Less than a minute later, she felt something she had never felt before. She felt Zuko and the Blue Spirit unite and become one in the same manner she and the Painted Lady did. She knew the two of them merging was not a new thing. They had talked about it before, and he’d told her of how he’d synced up with his spirit. However, any time she had begun to feel what Zuko was feeling before, it had been strictly physical.
This was the first time she felt the two of them unite. It was the same experience as when she merged with the Painted Lady, only it was taking place in his body. She felt their pleasure amplify, bouncing back and forth off each other. And feeling what he was feeling as she was, she shared in the experience. That same pleasure bounced off her and went back to him, then rebounded upon her again in a cycle, sending both of their pleasure to incomprehensible heights. In mere seconds, she was hit with a screaming orgasm.
Lunging forward, she clung to him desperately as her body jerked about uncontrollably. Zuko buried his face into her neck, hissing into her damp skin as he held her tightly, experiencing her orgasm right along with her. It was so intense Katara surely thought that she would die, and could only hold onto him tightly as she rode it out. She couldn’t even bring herself to take a breath the entire time, and when her climax finally started to come down enough for her to gain enough control of her body to breathe again, she was moments away from passing out from lack of air.
Throwing her head back, she inhaled as much air as her burning lungs could take in. It came back out in a rush as she looked back down at Zuko, a head taller than him due to sitting on his lap. Despite being starved for oxygen a moment ago, she suddenly needed to kiss him even more. She grasped his face and slammed her lips against his, forcing her tongue into his mouth as she kissed him aggressively.
While she and the Painted Lady had separated, and apparently so had Zuko and the Blue Spirit, she could still feel what he was feeling as keenly as if she were the one feeling it. In the past, whenever they had begun feeling what the other felt, that connection always ended once one of them climaxed. This time, however, that connection remained. She didn’t bother to think about what that meant and simply relished in the experience as they made out.
Breaking the kiss, Zuko roughly grabbed her chin in his hand. “Turn around,” he practically growled in her ear.
Katara’s stomach twisted with excitement. That hadn’t been the Blue Spirit, that had been Zuko. He sounded on the verge of losing control. Katara wouldn’t admit it, but she loved when she made him lose control. The Painted Lady purred in agreement, also loving it when she stripped her mate of all reason.
Shifting about on top of him to follow his order, she turned around while keeping him inside her, causing Zuko to growl in response. “Tease.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she smirked at him, then leaned back so she was balancing on her hands and feet. Zuko’s own hands came up to cup her sides as she began moving on top of him. Zuko thrusted up into her as well, penetrating her at a different angle, making her see stars, though she wasn’t sure if she was the one seeing them or if she was seeing him see them. They were still feeling what the other was feeling, and Katara moaned at the feel of him filling her.
“Spirits, spirits, spirits, La!” she cried out as Zuko bounced her in his lap.
Zuko suddenly sat up, wrapping his arms around her and grasping her breasts. Katara gasped as he roughly fondled them, groaning in her ear as he felt it too. “I still can’t believe we can feel each other this way.”
Katara could only moan in response, leaning her head back to rest on his shoulder, and the Painted Lady reached back to tangle her hand in his hair. Zuko proceeded to roll her breasts around, licking a trail up her neck before nibbling on her earlobe. Katara could actually taste the saltiness of her own skin from him, and she began gyrating her hips as she moaned in pleasure.
They continued to move together until she was hit with another orgasm, and they groaned simultaneously. Feeling herself climax on his cock from his end, she had no idea how he wasn’t cumming right along with her; perhaps the Blue Spirit was increasing his endurance. But then all thought left her as Zuko dropped back down onto the bed, taking her with him.
With her laying on top of him, her back to his front, one of his hands released her breast to move down to begin playing with her clit while sucking on her pulse point. Her mouth dropped open with a cry of “Tui!” as she entwined their legs, spreading herself wider, reaching above her to push against the headboard of the bed to help thrust against him.
With him fingering her clit, it wasn’t long before she was cumming again. And when she recovered from her euphoric state, she found that she and Zuko had shifted onto their sides with him behind her; she had absolutely no memory of having changed positions. Seeing as this time she and the Painted Lady hadn’t united, she wondered if the spirit had taken control and made the move while she had been recovering from her orgasm.
She just rolled with it though, propping herself up. She reached down and took hold of her own leg, lifting it up to give Zuko more room as he thrusted into her, and his own arm reached beneath hers to grasp her breast, his other one snaking around her, finding her hand. They interlocked their fingers, squeezing each other’s hands lightly as they rocked together.
Closing her eyes in delight, Katara turned her head as far back as she could, feeling Zuko press his face to hers. She briefly let go of her leg to reach up and brush aside her hair sticking to her face before grasping her leg again as they panted against each other’s mouths, occasionally exchanging kisses and licks.
He brought her to orgasm two more times before he finally found his own release. The feel of his climax had her cumming again, and it doubled up as she felt his orgasm herself in addition to her own. And as they experienced this pure bliss, Katara felt something new again. It was akin to what she felt when she and the Painted Lady merged, only now she was feeling it happening with Zuko.
Or, almost. It was more like the beginning of it. The mergence had begun, but ultimately fell through, their essence separating before they could fully come together the way she did with the Painted Lady and he did with the Blue Spirit. And as their climax ended, they were left in a sweaty, panting entanglement of limbs.
For the next few minutes, they simply laid there, their breathing and heart rates regulating. And through the post-orgasmic bliss that filled her mind, Katara couldn’t help but note the fact that she and Zuko had almost succeeded in completing the ritual. The familiar guilt began to roll in, but she let it pass right over her, ignoring it in favor of the sheer delight her body was experiencing. She’d really meant it when she’d said that she was tired of feeling guilty for something beyond her control, and she was going to do her best to ignore those feelings.
“We were almost there,” Zuko told her suddenly, apparently mirroring her thoughts.
Letting out a sigh, she disentangled herself from his arms and legs, but only so she could turn around to face him. Once she was laying on her side, she reached for him again and wrapped a leg around his, once again entangling their limbs. Then she leaned forward and kissed him.
When the kiss ended, she looked into his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. No more expectations, remember? No more pressure, no more guilt. Just us. Just this moment.” She waited, and when he nodded, she stroked his cheek. “Good, now kiss me.”
Their lips met, and their hands soon began exploring. It wasn’t long after that that he was inside her again, reigniting the same passion from before. And so the night went on, a pleasurable repeat of all the previous nights. But this time, it was also, somehow, so much more, having a closeness and intimacy that had been lacking despite everything they had done and experienced thus far.
The decision to cast aside their guilt, to simply feel and experience rather than burden and self-hate, it was so freeing, so liberating. And it allowed the two of them to focus entirely on each other. And when the guilt did threaten to creep in, Katara fought against it, pushing such thoughts and feelings aside and telling her that she shouldn’t feel guilty, and she could feel Zuko doing the same.
As the night went on, she began to connect to Zuko on more than a physical level. She began to connect to him on an emotional level too, feeling what he was feeling emotionally in the same way she could feel the Painted Lady’s emotions. And this went for his desires as well. She was able to sense where he wanted to touch her and how, and where and how he wanted her to touch him. And this was a two-way experience, where he was able to feel the same from her, allowing them to act on each other’s desires. It allowed them to fall even more into sync in such a way that thinking wasn’t even necessary, and touching and acting came was natural as breathing or blinking without them even realizing it.
They were losing track of each other, Katara realized. She was losing track of which parts were her and which were him, at times unable to tell if it was his hand touching her somewhere or her own. It was as if they were becoming one being in two separate bodies but were actually a single living creature. And in the back of her mind, she knew that this was them making progress with the ritual. They were getting closer, she realized, but she did her best not to dwell on that, to not think at all and just enjoy.
At certain points, it was as if even their minds were uniting. There were times in moments of ecstasy where Katara found herself screaming “Agni!”. Likewise, there were instances where she heard Zuko call out the names of the Moon and Ocean Spirits. It was such a foreign thing to do that it almost made Katara afraid of this growing connection, like she really was losing herself in Zuko. At least it would have been frightening if it hadn’t been pure pleasure, drowning out any fear or worries.
It all eventually came to a head though close to morning. After another long night of seemingly never-ending ecstasy, yet another new experience began. Currently, Katara lay on her back, Zuko on top of her, hugging him tightly as he thrusted into her. She felt it, the beginning of another orgasm, and a powerful one at that. And through the bond that had formed between them during the night, she felt that he was close as well.
First there was the now familiar feeling of her and the Painted Lady fusing together into one being; nothing new with that. And then she felt Zuko and the Blue Spirit merge as well. Only it didn’t stop there. As they inched closer to another shared climax, the feeling from earlier of the two of them flowing into each other came back. This time though, it kept going.
Four had become two, and now two were truly becoming one. More and more of them flowed into each other, as if their very beings that had already merged with the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady had suddenly been torn from their bodies and elevated to a higher plan of existence where it was just the two of them floating around in the ether. And like two magnets drawn together, their beings were pulled to each other.
“Oh, spirits!” they cried out together in perfect harmony, both their voices coming out of each other’s mouths. “Oh, Tui! Oh, La! Agni! Yue! Agni! SPIRITS!!!”
Their shared cries echoed throughout the room before speech became lost to them. Both their orgasms hit at the same time, down to the very micro-second, as if their climaxes were linked. And as their pleasure peaked, it finally happened. They came together completely, their very souls merging into one being. She had become Zuko and he had become her, as did the spirits inside them.
If Katara were ever asked to put the experience into words, there would have been none in any language that ever was or would ever exist that could justify it. It was beyond pleasure, beyond bliss, beyond ecstasy, or any word that couldn’t even scratch the surface of what she felt. It was as if both she and Zuko had become one with the universe itself. The sensation sky-rocketing to never-ending heights beyond thought and reason, the feeling bouncing and amplifying off of each other in an eternal cycle that went on forever, and in that moment, Katara truly experienced eternity.
It was as if she and the Painted Lady had become one loop in the figure-eight of the symbol for infinity and Zuko and the Blue Spirit had become the other, forming an endless, unbreakable loop that continued on and on and grew without end. And as they fully came together, that loop untwisted to form a ring that continued to fill, forming a ball of energy that suddenly exploded, obliterating everything. That was the closest way she would have been able to describe it, and even that paled in comparison to the actual experience.
In that moment, they ceased to be Katara and Zuko and became a single entity called Zutara, a being on its own plain of existence beyond mortal comprehension. In the same way the two of them had united and become one with their spirits, the new entities those unions had formed had now come together again to become something new, all four of them now existing as one. There was no more Katara, no more Zuko, nor more Painted Lady or Blue Spirit, there was simply them, a single being lost in the highest state of euphoria beyond even the comprehension of the spirits.
It seemed to last forever, and yet also end all too soon, as if all of eternity had been experienced in a single instant. And as the explosion of ecstasy that consumed all that this being knew began to die down, it shattered into infinite shards. And slowly, just as Katara had picked up the pieces of her shattered self during the past instances of when she and the Painted Lady had merged, she reformed into herself once more.
But there was something different this time. Something… missing. It took some time, a few minutes in fact due to her inability to think over the shock of what she had experienced, but when her brain finally began to function again, she suddenly realized that she was alone in her head and body. The feeling of that other presence, of the Painted Lady within her, was gone. The only soul in her body was her own; no spirits were attached to it, and the only mind in her head belonged to her.
It was a shock to be sure. After nearly eight weeks, she had almost forgotten what it felt like to be alone within herself, but she was indeed alone. The Painted Lady was gone, their connection severed. And that could only mean one thing. The Spirit Lovers’ Ritual had at last been completed.
She lay there in a state of near-shock at the realization. Her arms and legs were still wound around Zuko’s sweaty, naked body as his weight rested on top of her. But slowly, he lifted his head out of the crook of her neck and looked down at her, and she realized that he had come to the same realization as her; the Painted Lady and Blue Spirit had finally departed from them.
They stared at each other in sheer disbelief, both breathing heavily, their racing hearts still beating in sync. They were both speechless, both from the incomprehensible intensity of what they had experienced and from the sudden lack of spirits within them both.
A gust of wind suddenly whooshed through the room, and Katara sensed and recognized the presence of the Painted Lady. And after quite literally having become one with Zuko after he had become one with the Blue Spirit, she recognized the presence of his spirit as well. Zuko also picked up on the spirits’ presence, and they both looked in the directions of the blowing wind.
There in the room, the images of the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady appeared. It was very reminiscent of the night Katara and Aang had summoned them for the ritual in the first place. But now it was over, the ritual was completed, and they were free. Their transparent images hovered before her and Zuko, the Painted Lady’s hand in the Blue Spirit’s much larger one.
While the Blue Spirit appeared as stoic as always, the Painted Lady gave them a small, almost sad smile, before bowing her head to them slightly. “Thank you both for an unforgettable experience, and for what you sacrificed to do it.”
Then the two of them faded away, and Katara felt their presence leave. They’d gone back to the spirit world, likely to catch up on their spiritual duties they hadn’t been able to do while trapped within her and Zuko. And speaking of the Fire Lord.
Katara returned her attention to the man who had been her lover these past several weeks, who she now knew as intimately as herself, who had given her more pleasure than she had even dreamed was possible, who had done things to reshape her body in ways no one else ever could or would have, who had taken her on this incredible journey through ecstasy and intimacy, who had taken place of the role that should have been her husband’s. She now found herself at a complete loss at what to say to him.
He apparently found his ability to speak first, though it wasn’t much. “Katara…”
“Zuko…” she found herself automatically saying in response.
“I guess…” he began, looking unsure what to say. “I guess… we did it.”
She somehow managed a small nod. “Yeah… I guess we did. The ritual… it’s been completed.”
He nodded as well. “Yes, it has…”
They fell silent after that. And in the silence, it slowly registered to her that their naked bodies were still pressed intimately together, their limbs entwined, that despite having grown soft, he was still inside her; it seemed to have become so natural to have him there. He seemed to become aware of this fact at the same time as her, and they both glanced down the length of their bodies.
Suddenly, Katara felt herself go red with embarrassment. Despite having grown used to each other’s nudity and intimate touches over the weeks, there had always been meaning for their sex. It had always been for the purpose of fulfilling the ritual. And despite having decided not to focus on trying to complete it, that had ultimately been the reason for their copulation. Regardless of the attraction they’d acknowledged for each other, they still weren’t lovers by choice, and she was still married. And now that the ritual had finally been completed, the wrongness of the situation settled in again.
Blushing slightly, Zuko rolled off her, and Katara almost lamented at the feel of his softened member leaving her, knowing she would never feel him inside her again, feeling that a part of herself was being torn away. But then she reminded herself that she was married, and she never should have had another man inside her in the first place. And the guilt she had been ignoring and pushing aside all night came flowing back in tenfold. This time though, she allowed herself to feel it.
Sitting up, she shifted away from Zuko and moved to the other side of the bed. Reaching over the side, she grabbed her robe and put it on. There was no point in beating around the bush or putting things off. As spectacular as the sex had been, of how good it always had been, they’d fulfilled the reason for it. Now it was time for them to get their lives back on track and put this whole thing behind them. She would get in contact with Aang and let him know that the ritual had been completed and they could be together again. They would work this whole thing out and move past it.
That had always been the plan, and that’s what she was going to do. She would be the faithful, loving wife she had been before the ritual, who she had still technically been these past weeks despite the necessity for her infidelity. And she would most certainly not be taking part in any more spirit rituals for the foreseeable future.
But first, she needed several hours of uninterrupted sleep. With the Painted Lady having vacated the premises, so to speak, she no longer had the spirit energizing her, and exhaustion was hitting her full-force. It would actually be nice to have a full-night’s sleep again since she hadn’t slept for more than an hour every night since the Painted Lady had been inside her, and the rest of the time, she and Zuko had been going at it. Kept energized and wide-awake or not, the human body was not meant to have such little sleep, despite any negative affects the spirits had prevented them from having; the mind still needed to process everything properly while unconscious. In short, she was mentally exhausted and really needed a full-night’s sleep.
Correction, it would be a full-day’s sleep she would be getting since dawn’s light was beginning to creep up on the horizon. And she would be doing it in her own room, the one she and Aang had been assigned to when they stayed in the Fire Nation. No more staying in Zuko’s bed, wrapped in his arms like the lovers they shouldn’t be.
“I’m going to… head out,” she told him awkwardly. “You know, to my room, since… well…”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She saw that he had bunched up the bedsheets and wrapped them around his waist; a pointless feat really since the image of him in the nude was permanently burned into her brain. He wasn’t looking at her, but she saw him nod. “Yeah, you should. That would be best, now that this is… over.”
Heat filled her cheeks as memories of their passionate trysts flowed through her mind. Quite frankly, they had to have done it more in these past weeks than she and her husband had during their year-plus of marriage. “Right. I’m really tired, so I’m just going to go right to bed. I’ll send Hawky with a message to Aang when I get up to tell him to come get me.”
He nodded again. “Sounds good. And, hopefully, he won’t kill me when he gets here.”
She could tell that he was only half-joking. “Don’t worry, he won’t; I won’t let him. Remember, none of this was your fault. You were dragged into something Aang and I were dabbling with when we didn’t have all the facts. All you and I did was what was necessary to get out of it and fix the mistake Aang and I made.”
A humorless snort escaped him. “Who would have thought that it was as simple as not letting ourselves feel guilty about what we were doing. We could have ended this weeks ago.”
No, Katara wasn’t entirely sure about that. Setting aside her guilt hadn’t been easy. She suspected that it had taken time to get into the right state of mind to be able to do that. To have done what constantly made her feel guilty, to get tired of feeling guilty for so long, in order for her to become numb to it enough to push it aside to fully embrace the experience of the ritual. And she knew the same must have been true for Zuko as well. In fact, she suspected that it may have been even harder for him.
She let out a sigh. “Well, our guilt was stopping us from fully enjoying ourselves. But I don’t think it was as simple as that. The Painted Lady had been telling me not to let myself feel bad about what we were doing this whole time.”
Zuko made a grumbling noise. “Yeah, the Blue Spirit’s was telling me the same.”
Katara nodded; she’d figured. “But simply being told that wasn’t enough. I think we both needed to be in the right state of mind and the right place emotionally to not let our guilt get to us enough to complete the ritual.”
It had been something she had been thinking about earlier. Not letting herself feel guilty wasn’t something she could just consciously do. She supposed it was akin to being ready to forgive someone who wronged you; you couldn’t just do it. It took time, and you had to be ready to forgive them before you could. Kind of like how she hadn’t been able to forgive Zuko for his betrayal in Ba Sing Se until she had found peace in relation to her mother’s killer, only then had she been able to let her hatred go. Likewise, she hadn’t been able to not let herself feel guilty until she had grown tired of feeling it and made peace with the fact that completing the ritual wasn’t something that could be forced.
And speaking of forgiveness, she supposed there had also been a sense of forgiving herself. Required or not, she had still cheated, and she needed to forgive herself for that. Deep down, she had known she shouldn’t blame herself for her infidelity, but she still had. Forgiving herself for something she shouldn’t be blamed for had helped in casting aside her guilt. She had just needed the time to be able to forgive herself. And she hoped that Zuko would be able to forgive himself too; she’d already done her best to assure him that he was not to blame. If anything, she and Aang owed him an apology, but she knew Zuko would never accept one from them for doing something that he felt he had done wrong.
“But it’ll be fine,” she continued. “Aang will forgive us, especially since we had no choice to; he knows we had to, and you know how all about forgiving and moving on he is. Still, I’ll find some way to make it up to him.”
“I’ll have to find a way to make it up to him too,” he said solemnly.
And there it was, exactly what she had just been thinking about, and she shook her head. “You don’t have to. You were the one who got roped into this by Aang and me.”
“I know, but… it’ll make me feel better.”
She sighed at that. If it would give him peace of him and make him feel less bad, then she would let him do whatever he wanted. “Ok, you do what you feel you must. For now, I’m going to head off to bed before I pass out.”
He nodded. “Yeah, me too. I’m exhausted.”
If he was as tired as she was, then he would likely sleep the day away too. In fact, she almost didn’t think she would even make it to her room before falling asleep. And so she got up, leaving Zuko on his bed and began heading to the door.
A storm of mixed emotions were swirling through her though, too many for her to work through right now, and a million thoughts were going through her mind. But amongst them all, a single question stood out. It was one she didn’t want to ask though. Before, she wasn’t sure what the answer would be, but if there was ever a time to ask it, it would be now, before she walked through the door. No matter what the answer was, it wouldn’t change anything, but if she didn’t ask, she knew the question would forever haunt her.
Pausing with her hand on the door, she let out a sigh and looked back at the man who had been her lover. “Zuko?”
Almost as if he had been expecting this, he slowly turned to face her, looking at her for the first since he had rolled off her in bed. “Yeah?”
Feeling a blush fill her cheeks, she slowly and quietly asked what was on her mind. “All of this that happened between us… How… How much of everything was the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady… and how much of it was… us?”
She almost regretted asking, but she had to know. Attraction was one thing, lust was not love after all, and both she and Zuko had admitted to being attracted to and lusting after each other. The ritual had forced them to act on that lust, but Katara had told herself that even though she’d had no choice but to cheat on Aang physically, as long as she didn’t emotionally cheat on him, things would work out; they could simply put all this behind them. An emotional affair though, that was another matter entirely, and was something she wanted to avoid.
The complication came in the form of the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady. They loved each other, and while the Painted Lady had been inside Katara, she had felt her love for the Blue Spirit as if it were her own. And with him inside Zuko… well, it had been a very confusing and complicated time for her.
She knew the same was true for Zuko as well. When they had connected, she had felt what Zuko had felt coming from the Blue Spirit. She’d sensed his love for the Painted Lady inside her, and knew Zuko had been feeling it the whole time too. And even though both spirits were now gone, it left a lingering feeling of confusion that had Katara trying to distinguish what feelings had been hers and what had been the Painted Lady’s, and for who.
In regards to her question, Zuko was silent for a long time before finally answering. “I… I don’t know… It all just… blended together. I completely lost track of everything, of where the Blue Spirit and I began and ended… of where you, the Painted Lady, and I ended as well, along with who was feeling what, of who was thinking what. It was like all four of us had become one person.”
No, it wasn’t like that, it was that, at least towards the end. And Katara understood exactly what he was talking about. It was why it had been so confusing, and why she had asked the question to begin with. She’d wanted clarity on things, but it seemed that Zuko was just as mixed up as she was.
“But wasn’t that the point of the ritual?” he continued. “For the spirits and their… hosts, I guess, to share everything with each other? But no matter what we felt from them and how us hosting them made us feel about each other, it doesn’t change how you alone feel. I mean, you love Aang, right?”
She nodded. “Of course I do. That hasn’t changed.”
He nodded as well. “Then that’s what really matters. Anything else can ultimately be chalked up to as a product of the ritual. So just focus on what you actually know to be true for yourself, and everything else will be fine.”
Katara felt herself relax at his words, and she gave him a grateful smile. “Yes, you’re right. Thank you, Zuko.”
He returned her smile. “Anytime, Katara. Have a good night; whatever’s left of it.”
She gave him a nod. “Good night, Zuko.”
With that, she pushed open the door and stepped into the hall. And as she closed the door behind her, she also closed the door on the chapter of her life that was the past several weeks. This had been a temporary bubble in her life that had existed outside of the norm. Tomorrow, things would go back to the way they were supposed to be, to the way they were before she took part in the ritual. She would reunite with Aang and they would work through any complications the past weeks had caused, and things would go back to normal, maybe even result in them coming out of this stronger as a couple. Yes, everything would work out just fine.
But as she stepped into her room, a frown crossed her face as she took notice of something different. No, not different, not exactly. Perhaps something… extra was the right way to put it. Or, perhaps, the closest way of putting it.
What she felt was Zuko’s presence. He wasn’t here, she knew that, because she had left him in his room down the hall. And yet it still felt like he was right here in the room with her. It was akin to having someone stand right beside you. You knew that they were there, even if you looked away from them or closed your eyes, you still knew for a fact that they were standing right there. That was how she felt right now. And in this case, that someone was Zuko. It felt as if he were indeed standing right here next to her right now, even though she knew he wasn’t. What was that about?
The answer came to her a moment later, somehow penetrating her sleepy mind. She had been told that when she and Zuko completed the ritual that they would leave an imprint on each other’s souls. Was this what that felt like? That the other was always with them?
That was… well, she wasn’t sure what. She honestly hadn’t considered what leaving such an impression on each other would be like. It must be what spirits who became mates felt, that their mate was always with them even when they weren’t. And if she was feeling this, then Zuko must be feeling it too. Did this mean that they would always feel like the other was with them?
She didn’t know how she felt about that. But then, she was too tired to think about it right now. In fact, she wasn’t sure how to feel about anything anymore. But she would work it out. After a good, long rest, she would wake up with a clear head and more clarity, and she would take things from there.
She jokingly thought to herself that, at the very least, she would never feel alone anymore; though it might feel awkward at times. And was it all that different from Aang being connected to the past Avatars? And also, for some strange reason, it gave her a feeling of… relief to still feel his presence. But why?
It was complicated, but it was something she was too exhausted to think about in depth right now. Reaching her bed, she collapsed onto it and immediately felt herself start to drift off to sleep. It felt as if Zuko was right here in bed with her, even though she knew that wasn’t the case. She told herself it didn’t matter though. Soon, her husband, the man who was supposed to be in bed with her, would join her once more, and all would be as it should, regardless of this development.
There would be things to work through, she knew that, but they would do it, and everything would return to normal. She was sure of it. Come tomorrow, everything would be as it should be once again. She just needed a good night’s sleep…

THE END

(A/N: Well, that brings that to a close. And let me guess, you're feeling dissatisfied with how I wrapped things up or think the ending was axed or ended too abruptly. Well, there's a reason for that. This story was intended to be a one-shot lemon story, but as you can plainly tell, it became so much more than that. And for that reason, I decided that I wanted to keep the ending open for a possible sequel story. This one focused on the lemon portion, and now I kind of want to do a follow-up sequel story that's more plot driven and focuses on the aftermath of what happened in this story, including the consequences that follow and how things change between the characters because of it. Essentially, that would make this story a prologue of sorts that will kick off the more plot-driven sequel. At least, that's what I WANT to do. However, as of now, I'm sorry to say that I don't really have any ideas of what to do or how I want that story to go or play out. But I still wanted to keep the ending for this story open and somewhat inconclusive so that if and when I do actually come up with an idea for a sequel that I will be able to pick up right where this story left off. Please note though that even though I want to do a sequel, I currently have nothing, so I don't want anyone to hold their breath or have expectations in case I fail to deliver. If I do manage to get an idea and a sequel comes of it, great, if not, then I'm sorry to disappoint. I'm saying this because I don't want you all to wait around for something that might not come or may not come for a long time. If I do get an idea, it might not be for months or even years. I still wanted to keep the possibility open, but I can't make any actual promises. Keep your fingers crossed though, and who knows, maybe we'll get lucky. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this one and will keep an eye out for my other stories. Thanks for reading.)
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The Spirit Lovers' Ritual