Oasis | By : vickiso Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female > Katara/Zuko Views: 40529 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Oasis
I knew from the moment she defied me that she would be mine.
“I see you’ve learned a new trick,” I said, pushing myself up off the wet grass. I winced, and could feel there would be bruises where I had landed. They were the first any woman had ever inflicted on me, Zula excluded. But my twisted sister was no woman.
I turned, seeing the Waterbender’s cobalt eyes glinting dangerously in the light of the full moon. They burned with a fire to match my own.
Oh yes. She would be mine.
“But I didn’t come this far to lose to you.”
I lashed out with a blast of flames, and she threw a torrent of water at me, forcing me to stumble backwards. I lost my footing – stupid idiot, don’t underestimate the water wench! – and simultaneously found the liquid under my feet growing slicker, turning to ice, wrapping around my boots, encasing my feet in a frozen hold. I wobbled unsteadily, trying to regain my balance, but the girl was faster.
I watched helplessly as the stream water rose, a whirling blossom of clear ice closing over me. Through the watery walls, I could see the girl whipping her arms about, wrapping the hardening shell around me. Her form was perfect, her lithe body twisting and writhing before me. I couldn’t help the bud of desire swelling within me, seeing this private dance. When she stopped, the wickedest of smiles curled her lips. I could see it from here: she thought she had defeated me. But there are more ways than one to win a battle.
“You little peasant. You’ve found a master, haven’t you?” It came out with more malevolence than I had intended, but the Avatar was so close, my honour just within my reach, and I wanted it all over with now.
The heat I rapidly built within the ice sphere shattered the globe and I launched into a furious assault, throwing fireball after fireball at the girl, drawing closer and closer with each attack. It was with a mixture of delight and dismay that she countered each with waves of that pure, clean water from the oasis.
She was a worthy opponent. A worthy conquest for a prince.
Soon I was close enough to see her face, the look of utmost concentration and righteous fury etched into her smooth, mocha skin. Her narrowed eyes burned with an intensity to mirror the heat building within me, and I yearned to take her, right there, set her clothes ablaze and tear them off her and fill her with the fire of my need.
But the Avatar was here and now. I could go home and sate my lust with a hundred soft-skinned concubines if I got a hold of him. Still, I knew it just wouldn’t be the same.
I dodged to the left, feeling the icy water lap at my ankle, and reached for the boy’s collar, when a blast of cold hit my side, sending me flying across the oasis. A sickening thud and a crack sound, followed by the blinding agony in my chest told me one of my ribs had broken. I felt the ground beneath me, cold, sharp, and unforgiving, a sticky wetness soaking through my shirt. And as my vision clotted, all I could think was how horrified Uncle would be that I had spoiled my nice white training clothes…
* * *
I heard the crack, and thought it might be the loose shale of the wall crumbling away, but knew that slightly muffled sound had come from Zuko’s body. He slid down to the ground, motionless.
A lump of guilt formed within me. Dear gods, what have I done?
The young man lay piled in a heap on the opposite shore, a narrow strip of rocky, lifeless land ringing the circular island. I could see a bright red blossom of blood forming on his side of his white clothing. I don’t know what made me do it, but I stopped my assault and jumped into the stream, sloshing loudly through the water, climbing onto the shore and kneeling by the Fire Prince’s side.
He was lying at an odd angle. A sharp rock had punctured his side on the ground. It didn’t look deep, but it did look painful.
I glanced back at Aang’s body, sitting in lotus position by the koi pool, his eyes and arrow tattoos glowing faintly blue-white, as though it were an abandoned shell, or an unshaded lantern. I didn’t realize it at first, but I had come to rely on the little monk’s wisdom and trusting nature to guide me. I looked back down at Zuko, the teen who had just tried to take the Avatar away from the world he was meant to save. Should I help him? What would Aang do?
The answer came easily, like a tired sigh on the wind. I bent a snake of water under Zuko’s body and gently lifted the prince’s prone form from the shore, settling it onto the grass on the main island. I winced, seeing the blood dripping through the shirt where the sharp rocks had bit into him.
It was probably not the best judgment I had ever made, but I was not heartless like Zuko. I would not let him die just because he was my enemy.
Enemy. It sometimes occurred to me that I was far too young to call anyone ‘enemy’. This war was what had driven children to call other children ‘enemy’. Children. Wars were for grown-ups. Enemies were for grown-ups. But I was neither, and it sometimes infuriated me to be straddling that line between adolescence and adulthood.
Sure, I had lived my entire life during a war, and lost both parents to it. But still, ‘enemy’ was such a black and white term. Sokka used it often, but even he reserved judgment at times. I thought about Jet, and how he had seemed to be a friend until he had proven otherwise. I thought about how my girlish, childish crush had made me blind to his true nature. Curse that handsome Jet! That had been a lesson in growing up I would never forget: know thy enemy.
I sighed and looked down at Zuko, his face quiet, thinking. How could I call this boy – this young man, I corrected myself – ‘enemy’? I was barely old enough to call someone ‘lover’. I sighed. The day I could do both was the day I would have to stop penguin sledding, and I was not eager for that day, though I did look forward to it.
Dipping my hand in the water, I formed the glowing healing glove that Yaguda had taught me to perfect and began to pull up the prince’s sticky tunic. I was pleasantly surprised by the hard, flat muscles of his abdomen, but entirely distracted by the angry red torn flesh at his side. The smell of blood was overpowering. I gingerly applied my touch, and closed my eyes, willing the wound to close and heal, trying not to think about how warm Zuko’s skin was, even in these frigid climes.
The blood stopped flowing out of his body as the flesh sealed and new skin grew over it. I exhaled, feeling an overwhelming sense of triumph and accomplishment, but it was a short lived sensation as I remembered the sickening crack of Zuko’s ribs when I had dashed him like a rag doll against the wall.
I pushed his tunic up further, and had to remove the coil of rope looped around his chest to do so. I tossed this aside, and pulled the thick sweater off over his head, his limps arms pulling out of the sleeves.
The smile worming into my lips couldn’t be helped. Zuko was broad-chested and well-formed, his pecs and abs very defined for someone his age (Sokka being the only other comparable boy I’d ever seen without a shirt, and he was my brother, for incest’s sake!). The cords of his neck strained out, even as he lay there, unconscious, though his face was quite serene.
Unconscious? It occurred to me I was not being prudent. The Fire Prince could awaken at any moment, shirtless, and wondering why I was smiling down at him. I arranged his arms above his head and wrapped water snakes around his wrists and ankles, freezing them in solid ice cuffs. They wouldn’t hold the Firebender long, but they’d give me enough time to counter him if he woke up.
Feeling a little safer, I examined the teen’s torso, wondering at all the bruises, scrapes and scorches decorating his chest. By the looks of them, he had had them for a few days, and they were healing over nicely. The freshest purpling bruise I had inflicted covered a palm-sized area on his right side. I gently probed the spot and felt a slight shift of the bones. Definitely broken. But I could fix that, too.
Drawing more water from the sacred oasis (spirits, forgive me this trespass), I set to work healing the injured heir to the Fire Nation. I knew he would not be grateful, nor would this change his obsession with capturing Aang, but in my heart, I knew it was the right thing to do. Damned be the consequences.
Knitting bone back together was much more difficult than flesh, but Yaguda was a good teacher, and I had made time between lessons with Master Pakku so I could learn from both healers and fighters. In quick time, Zuko’s ribs were mended, and the bruise was erased.
I looked over the rest of his scarred body, my eyes flickering over his bare chest, and decided he would not mind a little more help. Such a fine form should not be so mottled with scars. I glanced briefly at his face, but the facial scar that marred him was not something I considered a defect as much as an identifier. I set to work on his other injuries, reforming the prince’s perfect torso – if not for his benefit, then for my own selfish pleasure. He would not thank me, but I didn’t need his thanks.
In short time, I came to realize I needed something else...
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