Moonlight and Firelight

Team: Earth Kingdom

Round: 4 Completion

Category: Theme

Prompt: Lantern

Word count: 2864

The last thing Katara remembered was looking out the window of her igloo at the clear, moonlit night, before she was suddenly swallowed up in darkness.

She gasped, heart racing, as the dark pushed in around her and she pulled desperately at the air to find water to bend, if nothing else than to just find a tether to something tangible in this inky blackness.

But then, as quickly as it had arrived, the darkness was pushed aside by the warm glow of a lantern that had appeared within her grasp. She studied it with shock and suspicion, but swiftly turned her attention to her surroundings when she discovered nothing out of the ordinary about this light. Katara held her lantern higher to illuminate the darkness. She peered around in confusion, taking in the cave walls, the smell of saltwater and musty air, and the distant sound of… scuffling?

"Hello?" Katara called tentatively. The sounds stopped abruptly.

"Katara?"

"Zuko?"

Katara turned her head in the direction of Zuko's voice where a long tunnel awaited her. She took a few steps in that direction, hoping to find a familiar face and maybe get an explanation here. She slowed to a halt when she glimpsed the flicker of light coming around the corner. It was followed closely by an achingly familiar face.

Zuko came jogging toward her. Katara felt herself relax just a bit at the sight of him, though the tiniest and most secret part of her couldn't help but feel slightly disturbed by the harsh shadows and lines in his scarred face, brought into harsh display by the firelight in his palm. He came to a stop before her and she lowered the lantern. He blinked at it.

"Where'd you get that?" he asked her.

Katara shrugged, wide-eyed. "I-I don't know. Suddenly I was just here in the dark, wishing I had a light, and then I held up my hand and here it was!"

Zuko frowned at it, brows furrowed like he wasn't at all sure he trusted this mysterious object.

Katara looked around, once again investigating the cave surrounding them. "Where are we?"

Zuko turned to look down the pathway he'd just come down. "Not sure," he murmured, "all I remember is sitting at the window, thinking about… about things and suddenly, I'm here in this dark cave."

Her eyes widened. "I was just sitting at my window too! I think I must have fallen asleep or something."

"Hmm. There's something about this place… it feels… I don't know, almost… like a dream, but it also feels too real to be a dream…"

"Yes!" cried Katara. "Yes that's exactly what I was thinking! Do you think…" she bit her lip thoughtfully, "do you think that maybe we're in the spirit world?"

He regarded her thoughtfully. The wheels in his endlessly churning mind were clearly mulling this idea over. The spirit world was definitely not his area of expertise, despite his brief interlude impersonating a vigilante spirit. Aang would be the one to know about things like this.

"I think we must be, or at least, something like that. How else could we both be here? Last time I checked, you were in the South Pole, and until a few minutes ago, I was in the Fire Nation palace…" he muttered. "If only Aang were here, maybe we could make some sense of all of this…"

To his surprise, Katara suddenly looked uncomfortable. She always had the most expressive faces; it was one of the many things he found endearing about her, especially since she liked to tease him so much about his constant grim stone-face. Her cheeks heated and her blue eyes darted away from his. He noticed she reached up and touched her necklace unconsciously.

Once, he'd stolen that precious keepsake from her mother away from Katara and used it against her. Even now, years after he'd made amends and they'd fought side-by-side as friends to win the war, he couldn't see that blue Water Tribe pendant without feeling a pang of remorse. But now wasn't the time to wallow in guilt over his checkered past.

Zuko was not the guy you went to if you wanted to talk about feelings. He wasn't good with the whole empathetic consolation and advice thing. If you went to Zuko with a problem, he would probably tell you, "that sucks", and if you pressed him for advice, he'd tell you exactly what he thought you should do, no sugarcoating, no platitudes, no nice words at all, actually. On the subject of feelings, Katara was the master.

So when Katara obviously had something heavy on her mind, Zuko was at a complete loss on how to comfort her. But he always tried his best, feeling he owed her at least that much.

"Uh, so, is… is everything okay, Katara? You know, other than the whole mysterious-cave-journey-thing, which is confusing, but I just get the feeling that you might, uh, have something on your mind?" he stammered. He could feel his face getting redder with every word. Communication: not Zuko's strongest leadership attribute.

She sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just… have a lot on my mind."

He nodded gravely and brushed his hair out of his eyes, which had been let out of its tight top-knot and now hung below his ears in the same shaggy style that he'd worn before the battle of Sozin's Comet. "I understand that feeling well."

Katara smiled weakly. They looked at one another in the flickering light. He was back in simple Fire Nation daywear. She was back in her Water Tribe blue dress. Her hair was still braided and pinned with delicate loops. His shoulders were still hunched a little defensively. It was like the past few years spent apart had never happened.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Katara in her most caring tone of voice. The corner of Zuko's mouth quirked up at the familiar words. How he'd missed her.

Zuko shrugged. Katara smiled more fervently now, feeling slightly nostalgic at the sight of that shrug. He always did that when he was trying to be strong and wave off whatever was bothering him to pretend that it didn't. It never worked on her. Aang had once told her that he thought she might be a truth-bender, but Katara preferred to think that she just paid enough attention to the people she loved most to know when they were putting on a brave face.

She set down her lantern between them and gracefully got to the ground, gesturing that he should do the same. When he didn't move, but stared at her, taken aback, she explained, "It's been so long since we've been able to talk and spend time together, just you and me," she said softly, her voice ringing with a strange echo through the tunnel. "We may not know where we are or what's going on here yet, but I think it would be a good idea to take this opportunity to catch up."

And by that, Zuko knew she meant that she wanted to hear what was bothering him and wouldn't take no for an answer. He joined her on the ground, sitting across from her with the lantern between them.

"Honestly, Katara, I'm feeling a little lost. I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought I knew what I was up against when I became the Fire Lord, but… I don't know what I'm doing at all! I have all of these decisions resting on my shoulders, and I can't stop thinking about whether I made the right ones or not. It's hard. And it doesn't help that all of my friends, the people that I trust and who trust me are all continents away."

Katara cringed at the guilt twisting in her gut. "Oh Zuko, I'm so sorry! I—"

But Zuko cut her off. "It's not your fault," he said curtly. "It's just that I'm a little overwhelmed and uncertain lately, and I just feel… alone. But I don't blame you for that. You belong with your tribe and I belong here. I get it."

Katara looked uneasy again. "Did I say something?" Zuko asked, trying valiantly to be tactful like she was.

She sighed. "I was actually going to say that I know how you feel. Lately, I've been wondering if I made the right choice, going back to the Southern Water Tribe with Sokka and Aang. I don't know why, but something just doesn't feel right anymore. It's like I don't really belong anymore. And with Sokka spending all of his time learning how to lead the tribe with Dad, and with Aang flying between the nations all the time, and with you… I guess I feel alone too." She met his eyes over the lantern. "Sometimes I wish I could talk to you face-to-face again. No one else listens like you do, Zuko."

He shrugged, embarrassed by the compliment.

"You're the good listener, I just try to return the favor."

"No, really!" she insisted. "That was the first thing about you that made me think maybe you're not such a terrible guy."

"Thanks," he said with no small amount of sarcasm. "When was that?"

She hesitated, and he knew before she told him what she was referring to. "Ba Sing Se," she whispered.

He didn't like to think back on that night. It was the moment when he'd briefly felt something, a connection between him and Katara that he couldn't define or explain, but had lurked in the corners of his mind ever since. He thought he'd destroyed it when he betrayed her trust and messed up more terribly than he would've thought possible…

And yet, when he'd seen her again, he felt the tiniest flicker of that bond. It was something in the way she looked at him, in the way she spoke to him. She brought out the best in him, in everyone, really, but he couldn't help but feel like there was something special about the way Zuko felt about himself with her.

She said he wasn't a terrible guy, that he was a good listener, at the very least. Zuko didn't think he was a great listener at all, but if it was Katara speaking, he could listen for hours.

They fell into an uncomfortable lapse in conversation before Katara asked, "Have you talked to anyone else about this? Mai? Your uncle?"

Zuko looked at the ground in discomfort. "Mai and I aren't… we're not that close anymore. She moved somewhere outside of the castle. We don't talk much. Last I heard, she was engaged. And Uncle is actually in Ba Sing Se setting up a tea shop. He thought it was time I try to figure things out on my own."

Katara didn't really know what to say to this information. She'd never liked Mai, the gloomy girl who seemed to bring out the most mopey parts of Zuko, (and it was NOT because of jealousy, she told herself,) but she was sad that he had no one to turn to anymore. She herself had left for the Southern Water Tribe not long after the war, once she was sure Zuko would make a full recovery, and then they had sent messages to one another every month or so, visiting in person at least once every few months… for a while. But life got busy, things got in the way. Gradually, months stretched past without a word between them. And in those months, she missed him more than she would have thought possible.

"I'm sorry, Zuko," she said softly.

"I guess Mai and I weren't meant to be. I think a part of me always knew that," he sighed. "Uncle says I'll know when the right person comes along, but…" Zuko shrugged again, "I wonder if maybe the right person has already…" he cut himself off, suddenly very red and avoiding Katara's eyes.

She thought very hard about what to say next. Finally, after several minutes of contemplation, she said in a tentative voice, "I know how that feels." His face jerked back toward hers.

"Aang and I have been together for years now, but we were both children when we decided to be together, what did we know? Aang was only twelve, for spirits' sakes! But he was always so sure of himself, of us. I would have followed him through anything, anywhere, no matter what. Now I'm not so sure I made the right decision."

Zuko's eyes were bright and alert, taking in every word she said. They both sat quietly and considered what the other had confessed.

"Do you ever wonder what might have happened if… if you and someone else had given it a try?" Katara blurted out, feeling comfortable enough in Zuko's comforting presence to be very brave and a little reckless.

She could see in his eyes that he understood what she'd meant, and there was a flicker of doubt there. "All the time," he whispered quietly. "Do you?"

He held her eyes and she nodded meaningfully. They'd never discussed anything like this before in the real world, and Zuko probably would have rather gored himself on a rhino than have this awkward and painfully honest conversation outside of the mystically safe confines of this cave.

"But it doesn't matter. Thinking about it doesn't change anything. So I'm wasting my time wondering about things that never happened." Zuko sounded so forceful and bitter with these words that Katara knew he was just trying to convince himself that it wasn't a big deal, that he would get over it.

"I don't think it's necessarily a waste of time," objected Katara. "The way I see it, I feel… I don't know, incomplete. And I wonder why that is and what might have caused it. I think that change begins with some good long thinking and internal reflection," she said matter-of-factly with just a hint of rebuke in her tone.

"So what sort of change am I supposed to have by thinking about—about things? What sort of completion is that supposed to get me?" demanded Zuko.

Katara paused. And then she had a thought.

"Maybe that is why we're here."

Zuko jerked his head up to meet her eyes. They were glittering with something that looked suspiciously like tears, but when he blinked, her eyes were dry, and he was sure he'd imagined it. "What do you mean?" he asked her quietly.

"Maybe… maybe this is where we can finally have closure. Maybe this is our way of… of coming to terms with the way our lives are heading. Our paths were so tightly linked for so long, it's been hard to just… break off, once we went our own ways."

She took a deep breath before continuing, never looking away from his intense gaze that was locked on her face. "Maybe, if we'd made a few different choices… maybe if you'd come with me in Ba Sing Se, maybe if I'd stayed in the Fire Nation after Sozin's Comet…" she shook her head. "But we can't live our lives with 'what-if's and 'maybe's. I think that we, you and I, are here to get some closure, some completion, for all of those 'what-if's."

Zuko thought about these words, turning them over and over in his mind. He let out a sigh. "I think you're right."

She smiled sadly, and the sight tore at his heart a little. "I usually am," she joked weakly. He didn't return the smile.

"Yes, you are."

They let the silence fall between them and settle like a blanket. Only the sound of the crackling flames in the lantern echoed off of the cave walls as they sat in contemplation.

"So what now?" Zuko murmured, more to himself than to Katara.

When she responded, however, her voice was oddly thick. "I go back to Aang. You find your Fire Lady. I go back to the South Pole and find a new calling. You rule the Fire Nation. Everything else will fall into place. I know it will."

Zuko let out a huff of air, not quite a laugh, and said, "I meant 'now' as in 'right now', like how we're going to get out of this cave." Katara blushed. He met her eyes again. "But thank you, Katara. People tell me that everything will work out a lot, especially the Avatar. But when you say it, Katara, I believe you."

She gave him a reassuring smile and reached over to squeeze his hand. He squeezed it right back.

And then, as suddenly as they'd left, they found themselves back in their homes, one in the South Pole, the other in the Fire Nation. They both blinked in surprise as they took in their surroundings, familiar and bathed in silvery moonlight. They both looked up into the sky and saw the moon, shining her ethereal beauty down on the Earth.

They smiled, feeling like they were one step closer to finding that peace and sense of completion they'd unknowingly set out to find when they'd looked out into the moonlit night.