#assassin!katara

He was intriguing, to say the least.

He was also her target.

Her target.

Hers.

Zuko needed to get it through his thick head.

Katara saved the boy who was once the center picture of her bow’s scope. A mugger tried to take her target. This was unacceptable.

The boy with eyes like silver bullets had smiled when she picked him up off the asphalt. He was damn near as light as air, and he touched his soul to hers before she could stop it.

Katara ran under the cover of a misty bomb and tried to figure out what it meant to taste things.

She loved it, she supposed. Having a sense of taste was strange. It was the mark of her soulmate’s claim—the missing sense that made her others make sense. It was stupid. Just like his smile.

It made her feel more than something.

But Katara was the Painted Lady.

Katara was an assassin.

Katara was also the soulmate of a boy with eyes like silver bullets and who smiled like his joy was a gift to share with the world.

Katara saved him. She was still an assassin

But she was also a defector.

She was also in deep shit.

The boy with eyes like silver bullets was buried even deeper in the pile than her, though. Katara felt little remorse as she picked off her former comrades who tried to take out her target.

Her target.

Her soulmate.

Katara didn’t know that water had a taste until she met him.

She didn’t know that hunger pained with yearning.

Her soul and what was once her heart were starved and ached so badly for him that, some nights, when the moon was full, she paced on the rooftop overlooking his monastery and growled like she was more wolf than woman.

Her soulmate with eyes like silver bullets had given her the ability to taste.

She hungered for him. And it was nearly unbearable.

He strained with the same need. She could tell. Katara watched him through the scope of her bow when he practiced his whatever it was that left him winded and sweaty and left Katara wondering whether or not to include the exercises in her routine. He moved like he was made of water.

She wondered if he tasted like it, too.

The first time she touched him, it was a purposeful accident because he was an idiot with no sense of self-preservation.

“Oh, sorry, sorry!” Her soulmate with eyes like silver bullets scrambled to help her up off the ground. He was alone at the carnival. He snuck away for some unsupervised fun, but he must have left his remaining braincells back in his room.

Because there’s no way in hell he couldn't have noticed the nest of Yu Yan stalking his movements like coyotes picking off weakened prey.

Too soon the boy was holding her hand. The Painted Lady was as comforting as a glacier and twice as cold. She could harden herself into steel at a moment’s notice.

Katara was an ice floe drifting in the unknown, looking for a safe harbor to shelter her from melting into irrelevance—just another lapping wave.

She was a puddle in his hand when he pulled her to her feet. Her training kept her standing, and her mind recomputed the cardinal directions as her soulmate with eyes like silver bullets became the center of her world.

Katara narrowed her eyes into a glare of her periphery. She did not take kindly to being hunted.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Her soulmate’s voice slid over her like snow sliding down a roof in one giant sheet. Warmth pooled in its wake, and she never wanted more of something in her entire life.

She hungered for it.

He looked her in the eye, and she was trapped in his snare.

“Are you lost?”

Lost. Yes, she could work with lost. His humanitarian nature would have him keep her close.

“I don’t know where I am. Help me?” The words were strange. Her voice sounded even stranger.

Her soulmate ate it up like he was starved for her. He curled his lip like he was eager to hear more. “I’m Aang. What’s your name?”

“Aang…” His name tasted better than anything Katara’s new sense could imagine. “My...My name is Katara.”

Real name. Stupid decision.

Aang gave her a stupid smile that shifted gravity and threatened to make her feet leave the earth.

“Katara…” Aang—she could taste even the thought of him—stumbled over her name with double the faultiness, and he failed spectacularly to hide it.

“Will you go penguinsledding with me?” He pointed to the ride of chutes that had otterpenguins shaped into carts and plummeting down at alarming speeds.

“Um...sure.”

Katara looked over her shoulder. Eyes were heavy and hot on her back. She held Aang’s hand and tugged him to her side to hide him from being burned by their glares.

He screamed on the drop. Katara pretended to do the same. He hugged her, damn near hiding in her clothes, and Katara felt like she was plummeting down a different, faster ride that left her stomach in the wrong place. The smell of him—open spaces under cloudless skies and churned earth after heavy storms—fed her soul just enough to make her smile when he blessed her with the same gesture.

She won him the largest skybison plushy available. He wanted desperately to return the favor, though he was the worst shot Katara had ever seen. She discreetly shot one of her nanodarts at the smallest target, and Aang nearly blew her away with the force of his smile.

He was as giddy as could be when he handed her the smallest plushy they had—a winged lemur with velcro on the paws so it could be hugged and hanged onto things.

Katara wore it around her neck and couldn’t quite understand why it made her feel more important than when she received her medals for getting her hundredth kill.

The Yu Yan weren’t supposed to get attached. Especially the Painted Lady. That’s why they took out their targets from a distance.

Something cold but unseen brushed Katara’s neck and made her skin ripple with gooseflesh.

They were seen.

This was bad.

Things went from bad to worse when Katara’s next surveillance found murder dressed in a sharp outfit and even sharper nails. The Kemurikage Dragon cut the crowd with her golden glare.

Katara had to think fast.

She never could figure out if her mind, her heart, or her soul made her next choice.

Because things went from worse to amazing when she spun her soulmate around. She used herself and the lemur around her neck, hanging down her back, as a shield, and pressed him into the wall between the stalls for Ba Sing Sausages and Western Air Tempura.

Public displays of affection were naturally avoided by the subconscious, even when on the hunt.

Katara kissed the boy who was once her target, then her soulmate, and now her friend.

She didn’t expect him to kiss her back.

Or to laugh and pull her closer like he had been expecting and waiting for this.

He tasted like sunshine and silly smiles. Like the warm things and soft comforts she had always been denied. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to climb the side of the bison plush to make himself level with her.

He pulled away to breathe. Katara’s soul cried out, her heart nearly whined, and her next breath almost left her in a growl.

She was still hungry for him.

“Are you still lost, Katara?”

His eyes were older and held something dangerous that tempted Katara to play with it just because.

He was taunting her.

He smirked with his eyes and smiled to signal the seal of his challenge.

She leaned closer. She felt more like a wolf than she ever was on the roof, and the hunter she was made to be was more than happy to come out and play.

He smiled some more. In a stupid, lopsided way.

She loved it.

She was starved to see it more.

“Why, yes, my Silver Bullet. I am very lost.” She kissed his cheek, savoring the taste of the smile that curled it towards his eyes. “Help me?”

He giggled again. Katara kissed him just in time to taste it.

Her hunger was sated. The beast beneath her skin purred its content and bathed in everything that was Aang.

If Katara didn’t know any better, she would have thought they loved each other in a past life.

But that was just silly.

Assassins and their targets never fell in love.

The hunter and the hunted lived worlds apart.

He kissed her this time, the prey tasting the predator.

The girl who thought herself a monster and a wolf surrendered to the boy with eyes like silver bullets and who looked at her as if through a scope.

And, suddenly, Katara realized.

Aang was hungry for her, too.

Katara kissed him again. And again. Even after her hunger was sated—for the moment—she chased his smiles and little laughs and relished the dreamy warmth his hugs leaked into her.

The Yu Yan could jump in the river. Azula right along with them.

Aang was her soulmate. Hers.

The world would burn and be reborn out of ash before she would let them take him from her.

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Idk this is just a thing that happened in my brain because I really wanted to write assassin!Katara