Chapter Text
The small girl who could barely walk through the thick powder of the Southern Isles was dead, and with her blood a warrior had risen, cold and bitter.
The warrior learned quickly to trust no one, that was her first lesson.
To put away the soft muscle of a tender heart and lock it in a cage of white ribs and keep it there indefinitely. She destroyed the key along with her humanity, she destroyed it when she first killed a man, when she first stained the dirt with hot crimson.
Trust no one.
When she touched his scarred face, her palm cold against his warmth, she almost believed the tears in his amber eyes were real—salted and raw, filled with sorrow deeper than any she had known. His expression twisted with something—something human. She could have sworn it.
Her heart betrayed her mind, it burnt through her wisdom and she stood there, searching the gold, digging through the amber, looking for the cruel snarl she once knew, and finding nothing but a soft frown and a quiet sadness.
His heart was locked away too, she could feel it searching for the keys, banging against the cage that was built more sturdy than her own.
They stood there for a long time, her hand on his face, the dance between them as old as time itself—fire and water, sun and moon, light and dark. They stared at each other, pleading silently for the other to look away, to break the tension that thickened the air between them.
Viridian light reflected on his skin causing it to have a sickly hue, pale and sick, his hot Fire Nation blood unfit to be surrounded by so many cool greens.
Then the silence shattered—rocks and debris exploding into the air—and the fragile moment between them was gone. They recoiled, as if burned, as if caught in a crime they hadn’t meant to commit. Their hearts slammed back into their cages with brutal force, and they scrambled away from each other, guilt hanging heavy between them.
Blue and gold eyes didn’t meet again until she was pelting him with ice daggers and water whips and he was throwing fireballs and flaming knives.
“I thought you changed!” The words were ripped out of her, angry and hurt.
“I have changed.”
She did not wonder what he meant by that, because in her eyes, this was the same Banished Prince who stole her mothers necklace, who invaded her village.
This was not the first time Katara has felt betrayal, and it was certainly not the last, but it gutted her. Her soul was ripped out, she felt someone tore her skin off and laughed at her nakedness. The heart in the cage died that day, smashing its fragile flesh into the walls of the ribs until crimson painted then red.
Trust no one.
Before a lightning strikes, the air around you becomes alive, the crackling of light and fire singing the ends of your hair follicles. After a lightning strike, she has learnt all that remains is fear.
When she left the Prince buried in the crystal, she didn’t glance back.
Katara has felt the weight of a limp body in her hands more times than she can count, but very few have had the cold silence of a dead one.
When she reached inside the Avatar, she didn’t feel the flutter of his heart, the flow of his blood.
She heard a deafening silence in his body, and she knew he was gone, really gone.
She was a fool, and with this she vowed to never trust again, not Zuko, not anyone.
She clutched on his robes like a lifeline, praying to every spirit she could think of. His fragile body was scarred with blistering red lines, wrapping around him like vines.
The glowing water soaked into his skin as if he was a dehydrated animal, it disappeared into his bones and didn’t reappear. His heart fluttered, she could feel it through her hands, and she wanted to sob out of relief. She doesn’t want to wonder if it would’ve soaked into the Prince's face like that, if his burnt cheek was as dehydrated as the Avatar’s body.
Trust no one.
Katara has learnt many lessons, and she will not forget them again.