The Gratitude Workshop

The worst answer is the one that comes in the words and voice of his uncle, seemingly chastising him for not being more patient, for likely striking out without thought and undoubtedly allowing his anger to fuel his fire.  “You fought without honor,” the version of his uncle that lives in his head says, and it burns.

All of that flashes through his mind when he sees the waterbender’s (“Katara,” he tells himself and then feels renewed shame for having tried to avoid the pain of referring to her by name, thinking of her as a whole person.) hands and thinks of how he has hurt her, even crippled her given what he has heard his uncle say about waterbending being so dependent on hand movement.  He knows his father would expect nothing less of the heir to his throne, but Zuko has to fight to stop the bile threatening to rise up his throat.

She has been talking more at him than to him, but it is only when she mentions the Fire Nation’s role in the death of her mother that he finally fully breaks from his reverie.  Such a loss is not something he could have imagined the two of them having in common, and he finds himself sharing that reflection with her. To his additional surprise, his disclosure is like water to the fire of her anger, as she seems to fully look at him for the first time since entering the catacombs, seeming to take him in fully for the first time in all of their encounters. He’s struck, again, by the weight of her gaze, realizing that in the last three years only one other person has put in the effort to look beyond the scar. “Is that how others have been treating her,” he wonders, becoming overwhelmed again by what he has surely done to her. Before he has time to stop them, though, the words are tumbling out of him, an acknowledgement of what he has done, an apology for the harm he is certain he has done. The words are heavy and awkward and poorly presented and he feels disgust for both the lack of honor with which he presents them and for the voice in his head, sounding both like his father and his sister, that says “the heir to the Fire Nation does not engage in such behavior.”

“Zuko,” she says, her tone pulling him out of his fumbling, “you didn't do this.” 

With those words, and the firmness woven through them, it is like she has washed him clean, offered him grace he still feels he does not deserve. Yet, she has not denied the harm he and another have done. She has not absolved him, but unlike so many others, she has shown a willingness to extend compassion, she has seen his suffering and acted not to further it but to make it dissipate. It is a method of interaction with which he is unfamiliar, but he cannot deny its allure. 

“How did it happen,” he asks, a part of him still needing to confirm that he was not the one to hurt her by having her name the person who did.

She holds his gaze before letting out a sigh and responding, “I’m not going to tell you that, but it wasn’t you.”

The anger is quick, causing him to question why she won’t tell him. Why can’t she do what he needs her to do? Why can’t she see how he is suffering and has suffered in his worry about having harmed her? Why can’t she - Zuko realizes this is a test, and she is watching him waiting for what he is going to say in response to her declining to answer his question.  He realizes that it being such an unfamiliar experience has caused him to quickly dismiss the compassion he had just been aware of her extending to him, its unfamiliarity making it hard to grasp. He also realizes that the look on her face didn’t seem like the ones Azula and his father wore when they tested him and expected him to fail. No, it was strange to him, but her look reminded him of his uncle, and…his mother. Trust, it was trust he was seeing in her face, and Agni help him, he wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but having made that connection, he wanted to live up to it.

“I understand,” he finally stated, his voice steady but gruffer than he intended.

She seemed to accept that answer, the tension easing out of the space between her brows. 

“It happened before I knew I could have healed myself,” she said, a ghost of a smile appearing on her face, as Zuko felt a look of surprise and confusion overtake his own. “I didn’t learn that until we reached the Northern Water Tribe,” she continued, the same look still on her face but a little tighter now, a little less bright. “I think it surprised me more than anything,” she continued.  “I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight against the Fire Nation.  I wanted to fight against anyone who may have been involved in the murder of my mother and the decimation of my village.  I wanted to fight against anyone involved with continuing this awful war and stopping Aang from fulfilling his destiny of bringing peace.  I wanted to fight you!”  The smile now long gone from her face, her breathing was quick and ragged.  Zuko thought she looked tired, too tired, in that moment, questioning if he had ever looked that exhausted.  He could understand her desire to fight him, though, because he had felt the same desire to fight her.  Despite how much he had hated to admit it to himself during their first skirmish, she had, had potential as a fighter and having not encountered a waterbender before he had respected the challenge of battling a new form of bending.  By the time of their fight at the North Pole, he could see that she had continued to make improvements in her bending and strategizing, and she was certainly aided in her efforts by the full moon.  Looking back, though, he could see how she had been working harder than she should have had to in order to perfect her forms, how she seemed to be using her whole arm for moves that had required only her hands, or even just her fingers, during their previous fights.  He hadn’t been fazed by that, being so focused on The Avatar, but it hadn’t fully escaped his notice either.  “And yet, she still managed to beat you,” he thought, contemplating just how skilled of a bender she would be if she hadn’t been injured, just how skilled of a bender she is with her injuries. 

“You are a fighter,” Zuko stated, feeling somewhat surprised by his own admission but also wanting to be honest about the matter.  His words still felt insufficient, though a small smile returned to Katara’s face.

“I am,” she responded, “but I’ve also become a healer.  Being able to do both, to be both, that feels like what I’m meant to be doing, stopping the Fire Nation, while also doing what I can to undo the harm they have caused.”  She had a determined look on her face, and if Zuko didn’t know better he would have said the light in her eyes came from an internal flame.  Just as he had questioned if he had ever looked as tired as she had earlier in their conversation, he now questioned if he had ever looked so certain, so self-assured in his purpose.  He knew he wanted to capture The Avatar, but had he ever felt as settled in that as she seemed to be in her disclosure.  He didn’t think he had.  Rather than elicit anger or jealousy, however, that realization made him curious and even a bit intrigued.  He recognized that her identifying herself as a fighter was not meant to be boastful or to intimidate, as he might have expected from others, but rather was merely her confirming, both to him and to herself, a part of her identity.  In spite of himself and in spite of what he knew would be expected of him by his sister, father, and their nation, he found himself feeling impressed by the girl in front of him.  She struck him as having become a master of her element and the master of herself and her destiny, and though he still felt that they were at odds with each other, he could admit to himself, if not yet anyone else, that she had his respect. 

He was sitting on a question (Well, two questions if he counted his lingering question about who had burned her, and he found himself still clinging to that question, though maybe for a different reason now.), though, and decided to entrust it to her.  “You said you learnt to heal after it was too late to heal yourself.  Does that mean there’s a time limit – that there’s a limit on how long an injury....”  His words petered off as he also came to a halt right in front of her.  He’d been aware he’d been moving, but it was as if his brain and his mouth couldn’t keep up with his body and the former had to stop in order to also stop the latter.  With his hands now in front of him and his mind and body having come to an abrupt halt, he felt almost as if he was stuck in time, unsure how to proceed, scared about how vulnerable he had almost been, and worried about how Katara would respond to him having gotten so close to her.

Being this close to her he could see how the light of the crystals had changed the color of her eyes from the icy blue of the waters of the South Pole to a beautiful blue-green that he imagined would match any of the lagoons in the Earth Kingdom.  “Water is the element of change,” he heard his uncle’s voice say in his head, and he was once again impressed by his companion, her eye color reflecting her ability to adapt and, from his interactions with her, seemingly fit-in anywhere. 

“Zuko, you’re staring,” she said, and that snapped him back to attention because, was that – was she teasing him?  He thought she was, but he wasn’t sure.  “To answer you question, though, here is a time limit,” she said, surprising him for the umpteenth time since being thrown into this catacomb with him.

“Sorry,” he said, while thinking, “yes, she was teasing me,” as she smiled after receiving his apology.

“Look at this,” she said to an invisible audience, “the great prince of the Fire Nation apologizing to me.”  Making a half-turn, she kept her eyes on him, smile still on her face, as she seemed to be expressing over-exaggerated shock to that same, imaginary audience.

“Banished prince,” Zuko stated, managing to keep his voice even, not letting any disappointment or anger or shame around having to correct her enter his voice.

“Ah, ‘banished,’ prince,” she said, emphasizing the epithet.  The teasing smile still on her face before a serious look overtook her features, and she said, “Your scar is because you were banished.”  She said it is a statement, but there were notes of uncertainty and revulsion in the way she said it, as if she’d experienced a revelation but couldn’t quite bring herself to accept what she had realized.  Zuko was loathe to dissuade her, to confirm what she seemed to be suspecting, but he felt compelled to while standing so close to her, standing on the precipice of something with her.

He let himself be honest with her, sharing about standing up during the war council, about accepting the Agni Ki challenge, the confusion he had felt upon seeing his father would in fact be his opponent, and ultimately the searing agony of his father’s fire.  He could not miss the horror on Katara’s face, as he recounted that part of his experience, and realized that this was the first time he had shared this part of his life with someone who was not already familiar with it.  A part of him knew to be grateful that he had chosen to tell her first.

“Oh Zuko,” her voice, soft and pained, let out.  Her gaze holding his own, she seemed to make a decision before slowly pulling at a leather cord that he now saw was tied around her neck.  As she pulled, a small vial, with a crescent moon-topped stopper came up and out of her neckline.  "This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I've been saving it for something important,” she stated looking down at the vial with something like wonder on her face before looking back at him.  “I think I’ve found that something important,” she said, her voice once again quiet, as if she was sharing a secret with him, and he couldn’t help leaning in closer and feeling struck that she could think of him as important.  “After all,” she continued, still speaking in a low voice, “if I’m to truly be both a warrior and a healer, it seems only fitting that I use the waters of the same Spirit Oasis where I fought you to also heal you.”  The teasing tone returned to her voice with those last few words, but Zuko barely noticed.  He was too caught-up in what she was offering.  He was not a terribly spiritual person, despite his uncle’s best efforts, but he couldn’t help agreeing with Katara’s assessment, feeling that it fit with the push-pull nature of her element, and also of her.

“If that’s what you want,” he returned in the same whispering manner she had been using.

“Is it what you want,” came her reply.

Agni he wanted it!  To no longer feel that he was marred by failure and to spend every moment of his existence with the sign of his father’s disappointment on his face.  The thought of no longer having strangers recoil in shock and the possibility of being able to return home without the Fire Nation nobility looking at him with scorn or pity brought tears to his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall.  “What about your hands,” he asked, talking around the lump in his throat.  He wanted to do the right thing but still felt pained by trying to do so, wanting her to say she had been true in her offer but scared she’d rescind it having been given the chance.

“My hands are what they are,” she declared.  “They can still help me bend, and they can still help me heal.  My scars are a reminder of why I fight.  They are a reminder that I have faced fire and not been consumed by it.  Not everyone is so lucky!” She let out on a small sob before wiping tears from her eyes, the water making her scars momentarily sparkle before she cast it away.  He wanted to comfort her in that moment to share with her the pain of a lost mother, but before he could decide how to best do so, he watched her gather herself back together, the loss still evident but longer overwhelming.  “I have forgiven the person who did this to me, and he has worked to earn that forgiveness, make amends, and be better.  My scars are my history, my present, and my future, by they do not define me...not in the way yours defines you Zuko.”

Her words were given with such care and commitment that for the first time since its creation, he felt no anger or shame around someone else mentioning his scar.  He recognized that she was right; his scar had come to define him, serving as an ever present reminder of the ways in which he had not lived up to the expectations of his father, not been the heir his father wanted, or behaved in the ways in the ways that his father had drilled into him as being expected of a member of the fire nation’s royal family.  He had been carrying around this mark of dishonor for three years, and his father’s prediction had been partially correct in that he had suffered, but he was still not sure what he was meant to have learned from that suffering.  Yet, in spite of that lack of learning, in spite of the dishonor he had experienced, in spite of his scar, she was offering to help him, she who had known the lose of a mother, who had been burned, who had been his enemy since their first interaction and still stood on the opposite side of him in this war, she was offering to heal him. 

The tears that he had managed to hold back, now made themselves known, not profusely but enough that even the most unskilled waterbender could not have missed them silently making their way down his cheeks.  The master waterbender standing before him, though, did not point them out or ridicule him for being so weak as to cry in her presence.  No, instead, she took the smallest step needed to close the gap between them and ever so gently placed her hand on his.  He had not expected it, that gentle touch, and the surprise of it fully focused his attention on her halting his tears.  Seeing that he had stopped crying, she then proceeded to lightly lift the tears from his face, leaving his cheeks dry, albeit a bit tighter than they had been.

“Thank you.”

“For which part?”

“Both,” he murmured.

“You’re welcome,” she murmured back.  Pausing a moment, she seemed to Zuko, having just made the same discovery himself, to notice hat she was still holding his hand.  Rather than letting go, she added, “you still haven’t told me a definite ‘yes,’ or ‘no.’”

“Yes,” the single word coming out of him so quickly that it rocked him forward a bit.

“Yes,” she repeated, giving the hand she was still holding a little squeeze before letting it go to remove the cord from around her neck.  Holding the cord in her left, she then brought her right hand up and, hesitating for only a moment, placed it on his left cheek.

Zuko sucked in a breath, feeling acutely aware of the way in which her hand was touching both his scar and his skin and also noticing the difference of the feel on his cheek of her own scars and skin.  Her hand was a mixture of soft, smooth, and rough, the roughness the result of the scars, yes, but also, he assumed, having spent the vast majority of her life in a wintery environment and then constantly fighting and flying since leaving the South Pole. 

Having noticed Zuko’s sharp intake, Katara started to slowly pull her hand away, believing him to have changed his mind about being healed.  Her retreat was stopped, however, by the placement of his hand on hers, not trapping her there but asking her to stay, to finish what she had started.  “Okay.”  Her voice soothing, she looked at him, suddenly aware herself of just how close they were standing, just how brightly his eyes shone in the low light of this strange room into which she been tossed.  It was hard to tell, but she thought she might even be seeing a bit of a blush on Zuko’s cheeks (“Do firebenders blush?” she thought to herself.), as he, seeming to trust her to stay, slid his hand down her arm until he was lightly holding her near her elbow.  Katara was certain that the blush she had thought she’d seen on Zuko’s face was now mirrored on her own. 

She couldn’t say how long she’d been staring at his hand on her arm before finally noticing that he was looking at her with something like contentment on his face, and it only made her blush more.  Had she known he was capable of making such a face, of feeling at peace?  She was seeing such new sides of him, and she let herself feel grateful for it, let a small seed of hope take root – hope that he did not have to be the enemy, hope that he could make a positive impact in this war, and, La help her, hope that this might not be the only time that she would ever get to see that small smile.  Pulling herself back from that line of thinking, while still holding his gaze, she began to apply small amounts of pressure to the lowest part of his scar, where it met the unharmed skin of his cheek.  As she prodded in an attempt to assess the depth of the scar tissue, she watched Zuko’s eyes slowly shift to try to watch what she was doing, before even more slowly starting to close.  At first seeming to fight doing so, his eyes moved back to center before finally closing completely, as if in a relaxed sleep.  Being just a bit taller than her, his long, slow exhale became a warm breeze on her cheeks, and, within moments, she could feel his reaction, the minutest twitching of his cheek beneath her palm, to her responding exhale.  His eyes upon opening again were warm, like honey, despite the green tint on everything around them.  Though she was still learning how to read him, she could see him coming to a resolution, the honey crystalizing into amber before he shifted to press his cheek into her palm.  No longer being prodded, he let himself be held in her small hand.

Katara wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, but it couldn’t have been that long since her hand didn’t hurt, before Zuko let out another deep exhale, warming her face but also making her shiver.  If he noticed her reaction, he kept it to himself, though Katara almost (almost) wished he’d say something.

Instead, he looked to her and holding her gaze once again said, “thank you,” his voice soft but resolute.

“You already said that,” she replied, succeeding in matching his tone.  “And I haven’t even done anything yet.”

Seemingly puzzled by that response, he just looked at her for a moment.  “You’ve already done so much,” he finally said, no hint of exaggeration that she could discern in his voice.  He moved his hand down to cup her elbow, giving it a short squeeze before sliding back up to clasp the area of her lower arm that he had now been holding for some time, the warmth from his palm soaking through her sleeve to her skin. 

She’d always thought that a firebender’s touch would only ever burn her, but that wasn’t what she felt now.  She felt the southern sun during the few weeks in Summer that it was strong enough to warm her face, she felt the glow of the communal fire during the changing seasons, and she felt the heat of her family bundled up under their blankets and furs on the longest, coldest nights of the year.  She felt safe, and the realization made her gasp, hope burning within her. 

This time, Zuko made no effort to hide his awareness of her reaction, shifting so he was once more supported by her palm.  “I said ‘thank you’ again,” he began, “because I know what you would be giving up by healing me.  I know what you would be claiming by healing me,” he continued, his gaze determined.  “I have known generals who would not be as brave.”

She had already been resolved to her path, but she could not help the impact that his word choice had on her, the light blush creeping back across her cheeks.  She so wanted to be brave, to emulate and be worthy of the bravest person she had ever known, and here was this boy, her supposed enemy, who had just given her the greatest gift by seeing her mother’s bravery in her.  She couldn’t adequately name what that made her feel, but she was feeling more drawn to him, like a wave returning to the sea.

She knew he felt it too when, still looking at her, he turned his head, bringing his lips within an inch of her open palm but no closer.  “Asking my permission,” she realized, and questioning when a boy had last shown such care for her.  Turning her palm, she held his gaze as she brought her hand even closer to him but still leaving him space, a gap he could choose to cross or take the opportunity to back out. 

Suddenly his lips were on her skin, burning off all thoughts of him backing out.  He kept his eyes open for the first moment of contact before letting them slide shut again, the look of contentment back on his face.  Katara’s sharp inhale the only sound, as he gently pressed his lips to a particularly long scar.  Taking note of her reaction he pressed two more slow kisses to that same spot, flipping her hand over to press her knuckles to his lips before looking up at her through his eyelashes.