Archive of Our Own ^beta

Katara

“Okay. Truth or Dare.” I pop another fireflake inside my mouth.

Zuko might talk the talk but I can still see the nervous glint in his eyes, “Truth.”

“Tell me… your most embarrassing story.”

His answer is the flattest look I’ve ever seen. “Dare.”

I pick another flake and taste the spices like they were ten little explosions on my tongue. “No trades available.”

He chuckles and gulps some more of his water. It’s late, we shouldn’t be having midnight snack-attacks, but moving into a beach house is… It has a way of hyping people up.

Besides, we both like this routine of games we’ve built: whenever we want to ask each other a question, we talk like it were a game. Truth or Dare, Two Truths-One Lie, Twenty Questions. It’s surprisingly easier to talk that way, words flow more fluently. And there’s something to laugh about at the end of it. Zuko told me he once had to wear a cast on his arm after wrestling Azula; most of his childhood memories are about his family because he didn’t have many friends growing up—(like me!)

He has memorized almost every theater quote he’s ever heard and he makes hilarious references. He plays Taiko drums. His favorite food are chocolate chip pancakes with vanilla ice cream. And… I like listening to his voice when he talks about these things.

I like the moment when his eyes melt into golden liquor; I like the way he smiles, how it lifts his features.

And the only reason I discovered it was because of silly teenager games, how crazy is that?

Zuko clasps his lips, the tip of his tongue sweeps over them. “I used to play the tsugi-horn in an orchestra when I was eleven.”

“I thought you played the drums.”

“And the tsugi-horn. And the pipa. And the ruan, the dramyin, the erhu, the yuequin…”

I throw a flake at his head. He catches it readily.

“I said ‘tell me your most embarrassing story’, not ‘tell me how much you can gloat’.”

“That was embarrassing,” he brings the flake to his mouth, “you should’ve seen the uniforms.”

“Well, now we are getting somewhere…”

“No. No. Use your imagination.” I throw another flake and he catches it just as easily. “You shouldn’t throw away food.”

“Urgh. People say I’m self-righteous but you…”

“People say I’m reckless but you…”

Jerk! “I hate you,” I can’t help my smile.

“No, that’s not true.” His eyes sparkle with humor this time, and something else. “I think you like me.”

“You can’t prove that.” My stomach flutters.

“Truth or Dare,” he says with a smirk.

“Dare.” Dare, sucker!

“I dare you to come take a walk with me.”

“I thought you said the house was too far away from the town.” And we confirm it when we finally climb to the roof. In the distance extends a big terrain glowing with golden and red lights and folk music playing.

“It is, but we move fast.”

Zuko stares ahead like he was zoning out but still in complete control of his body; I watch as he walks over to the ledge, takes a leap of faith, then grabs a thick branch of a nearby tree and spins until standing over it.

Typical.

I throw a water tentacle, freeze it, and use it as a slide—like a rational human being. “When did you learn to do all these stuff?”

“What stuff?”

I catch up with him on top of the branch. He holds on to a higher one before pirouetting to the next tree.

“That stuff.” I use my bending to follow.

“When I was little, I wasn’t coordinated enough in my bending moves,” he jumps again and impulses for reaching another tree, “so I overcompensated.”

“That’s pretty cool too. Did you ever use a safety net?”

“Pfft! Safety nets are for babies.”

Smug madcap.

His stunts grow faster the closer we get to the clear area, where there aren’t many trees and the lasting ones are not thick enough to carry a person; Zuko jumps and barely has to touch anything to push himself forward. I’m so absorbed watching him that I almost lose grasp on my water current surfing through midair.

Until Zuko catches me on the ground, “Stay close.” He takes my hand. “The place is going to be crowded.”

People with different accents speak nonstop around us at the bazar, every corner resounds colloquial phrases and songs I’d never heard.

The smell of seasonings fills my nose, luring me to ten different food kiosks at once. (I wish the rest of my Tribe were here, they’d love a place like this!)

“Is it always this packed in the summer?”

We pass selling stands, street performers—are we in the middle of some festival?

“Yep.” Zuko and I walk hand-in-hand; he is too engrossed in watching the spectacle of movement around us to let go. “You know what they say, it’s better to spend summer by the beach.”

“I wouldn’t know; I’ve never lived by the beach.”

“Huh. I’d swear I saw you at a beach mansion today.”

I shoulder-shove him but he just laughs. (He laughs.) “You think you’re funny now, don’t ya.”

We spend a few minutes in companionable silence—just because I’m not willing to admit he is a teensy-weensy funny.

A different song starts playing and I pull Zuko to stop nearby the performers, “What song is that?”

They are gathered around an improvised, not-to-tall squared stage. The flute and the drums sound rather leisured but a pair of rattles grant some extra energy.

“Oh, that’s part of a firenational dance. See?” Zuko points to a tall girl stepping onto the platform.  

It looks even smaller with someone standing over it, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s a firebender too, her hands grab a baton and light up both ends of it.

“It’s an offering for Agni, the Fire Spirit,” Zuko explains further, speaking close to my ear.

The girl throws the baton in the air and grabs another one, igniting the corners as well. She starts spinning both of them at the rhythm of the music, dancing as the fire encircles her. Circular patterns draw themselves in the air as though they were comets coursing through the sky.

When the dance ends, she blows the fire, creating a wave of it that makes everyone in her staring crowd step backward. And in the commotion, she smiles at Zuko.

A cheery one, isn’t she?

Everybody applauds—(myself included because I’m not petty like that.) “Nice dance,” I deadpan.

And she hears me pretty well now that the crowd dissipated in a chorus of tips thrown at her friends.

“Thank you.” She steps down from the platform. “Would you like to try it next?”

Bitch.

And I have to swallow my pride—(that’s the worst part.) “I wouldn’t know how to perform by myself.”

I feel instead of seeing Zuko’s shrug. “I can help you.”

“Really?”

“It’s a folk dance. I took dance classes when I was a kid too.”

Really. “Tonight keeps getting better and better!”

“Shut up.” He smiles before we step forward—not onto the stage, but closer to the musicians—and I give a little wave to the dance girl as we pass. (Because I am petty like that.)

Zuko asks the other performers to play something else.

“You sure about this?”

He is painted in gold by the bazar’s lights.

“Trust me.” Golden hands entwine with mine. “It’ll be fun.”

The music starts. It is a faster song.

He pulls me closer before letting go, and I spin following the rhythm. I know I should panic when he performs a firebending move, but I can’t bring myself to it when the fire current he casted scatters around us like fireflies.

Each thin thread of fire follows us around as we move, holding us inside a flickering sphere of light.

I never thought I could feel so safe surrounded by fire.  

The entire bazar paused their shopping-spree. I didn’t realize when, but by the time Zuko catches me again, we stand face to face and I see the fire dissolve in his eyes—the wave of applause snaps me out of it.

Even the other dancer girl claps as her friends collect some more tips. “Nice work.”

Zuko is talking to her friends so it’s just me and her now, whatever cold war we had seems to be over.

“Your boyfriend is very cute,” she says, looking at Zuko.

I choke, “Boyfriend?... No, he is…” I glance at Zuko, too, but he is still distracted. “He is just a friend.”

“Oh.” (Why do I have the feeling she understood something else entirely?) “Well, he is nice, and you’re a very good dancer…”

“Sapphire,” I stretch my hand to shake hers. (I still feel bad for giving people fake names.) (And for using the name Sokka came up with.) (He sucks at names.)

She accepts the salute—(and the name). “Shoko,” she introduces herself. “Enjoy the rest of your date.”

Yep. Something else entirely.

“I said—”

Zuko walks over to me as Shoko returns with her music crew. “Hey, check this; they let us keep half the tips.”

“Really? That’s so sweet!”

“I know.” He is counting the coins. “And now I can take you somewhere.”

He grabs my hand once more and guides the way through what’s left of the bazar.

“You are so hyper tonight!” I say between giggles.

“The dare was to come take a walk. You’re stuck with me until it’s over.”

He brought me to the Ember Island Arcade—since when has there been an Ember Island Arcade?

“This is a pretty interesting island.”

We take a seat at a table nearby the balcony; it has a view of the beach.

“Tourists must come for a reason.”

It’s very bouncy inside here, even more than it was at the bazar, people run from one game to the other, carrying prizes, drinks, the waitresses carry platters of food—and one of them comes to ask our orders immediately since we are some of the few people sitting.

I ask for a glass of watermelon and mint lemonade and Zuko for a glass of red wine. For some reason, I have a hard time picturing him enjoying a place like this.

“Did you come here often?”

He shrugs, sitting across from me. “Once. Azula’s teachers, Lo and Li, brought her, Mai, Ty Lee, and me.”

“Azula has teachers?” I arch an eyebrow. “Didn’t she win Little Miss ‘I Can Do Everything by Myself’?”

He laughs. “You know, it’s funny that you mention it. She once won a beauty pageant.”

“Okay, now you have to tell me about that.” I lean forward, feeling the curiosity eating me from the inside.

“It was an event for a festival, our mom’s idea. Azula did it just because she wanted to beat Ty Lee.”

“Was she any good?”

He shrugs. “I wasn’t a judge. But I’m pretty sure she would win just for being the Fire Lord’s daughter.”

“That’s not very fair.”

“You think you could do better?”

“I wouldn’t know about that either, we don’t have beauty pageants at the Water Tribe.”

He smiles, but then his brow furrows in thought. “That reminds me I haven’t asked much about the Water Tribe…”

This time, I’m the one that shrugs, “There’s not much to tell anyway. Sokka and I were born in the main settlement, Singuuriq^[1]—it’s like our capital city—but we were too separated from the other ones.”

“What does 'Singuuriq' means?”

“It’s a star. Southern settlements are named after stars; Singuuriq is the brightest one in the sky.”

The word means ‘flickering’. All the lamps in here make the stars look flickering too, but they are still so many in Ember Island’s sky.

Zuko asks me if we can see Singuuriq from here and I have to tell him no because it is more to the South. (That reminds me I don’t know the stars’ names in the Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom.) Then I explain to him how we used astronomy to track time in the Southern Water Tribe.

I hadn’t talked about this in a long time, it is thrilling and nostalgic. Because it is only fair, I end up telling him my embarrassing story about the time I drew constellations on Sokka’s face while he was asleep—(to be fair, I was four and he shouldn’t have fallen asleep if he was babysitting me)—which leads me to tell him that time I painted Dad’s parka like it was a kitten-lynx and Bato helped me cover it up. My parents had to put the paint on the higher shelves and discovered I was a waterbender when I splashed all the contents on the floor. 

“No way.” Zuko looks a little too happy to be hearing this.

“Yes way. It was the best and the worst day of my life til’ then.”

“Your parents got mad?”

“No. They went and hid the paints and wouldn’t tell me where they were.”

He laughs.

“I’m glad my failed artsy dreams make you laugh.”

“Oh, come on. Poor tiny Katara would be happy that you can bend all the paint you want now.”

I smile. That’s true.

“You know, life in the Fire Nation isn’t so bad.”

The waitress arrives with our drinks and I don’t elaborate on what I just said.

“I didn’t know you liked wine.” I take a sip from my lemonade.

He does the same with his own glass. “When I was eleven, I broke in and drank from my family’s wine cellar.”

I almost spit my drink.

“Who’s laughing of whom now?” Zuko teases.

“Sorry, sorry…” Gulp. “You were saying?”

“Azula bet me I couldn’t do it, so I went and did it,” he sips the wine again. “It was horrible, that thing tasted like sewer water and apple juice. But, it was the first time I beat Azula at something, so wine is my favorite since then.”

“Aww, tiny Zuko would be proud of you too.”

We spend time until we finish our drinks talking about everything and nothing. I tell him about the nickname Sokka put me when he couldn’t pronounce Katara—(it was Kitten, because I was tiny like a baby cat) (I’ll never forgive him for that)—and Zuko tells me that time he fell over spiky cord. He realized the petting zoo he liked to visit as a kid caged its animals and he tried to save them, he was so worked up that he fell over the cord. Awwwww!

“Thanks for paying for the drinks,” I say when we stand.

“Don’t mention it, we both earned the tips.”

Right.

I think there was a fault in the floor in here, I almost fell—

“Watch out.” Zuko catches me against his chest. It has to be the tenth time tonight.

“Thanks.” His heart beats against my palms. “To think I’d be the tipsy one.”

He laughs again.

And I stare.

And then we kiss.

Easy like that.