Gold Looking At Katara

Vague hints at Zuko/Katara but it is mostly just a story about Zuko and his daughter.

Avater The Last Airbender does not belong to me.

T for Teen because it sort of talks of killing, but nothing explicit.

This was written in about an hour after reading "Cold Is The Water" by Like A Dove. It is technically a sequel to chapter 2, which is all that is out at the moment.

Gold eyes stare up at him, so gold and like his own. They are bright in their aliveness but dark too because the sleep is not all gone. Her hair is dark, like his own, but her skin is a light mocha that is... interesting, so say all the boys that see her.

And the men.

Her son and daughter are a room away, sleeping off their grief as servants watch them for wailing, to pat away the hurts that their parents are not there to see.

"Daddy," her voice is hoarse, light because a day ago they buried her husband in the ground and in a week they will dig him up from the dry soil and give his body to the flame until all that is left is ash. "Daddy it hurts!"

"Oh 'Tara, baby," he moves forward and his golden eyes are circled in a thin red haze too now. He moves forward, down to the bed, down to his daughter who is all but crying too-dry eyes. He scoops her up. She is fully grown now, a woman, but he is tall and he can hold her weight like she is still six years old. He supposes she always will be to him and knows that is perfect to him.

When she begins to sob, he rocks, soothing her as best he can. He whispers things to her. "It's okay to cry, baby girl. It's okay to miss him." Some things he says quietly are barely audible.

He never tells her that it will get better.

They bury the Fire Queen's consort a week later. The male and female heirs stand beside her, quiet, still, and with wet eyes. And Zuko stands behind all of them, a head taller easily than his daughter and his shadow falling over the grandchildren. No one stands beside him.

Iroh died when the now-Queen was a small child, happily and in his sleep. His belly had been filled with tea and sugary treats. The man had been old then, but happy, and Zuko had been sad, scared to see him go. To feel so alone. But he had an heir of his own to raise in an environment he himself was new to, so he could not fall apart. Still, he did not weep.

And he would not weep now. Onwei had been good for his daughter. Not good enough of course-no one would ever be-but she had loved him and Onwei had treated 'Tara well, so Zuko had not killed him for even thinking of touching his little girl, had not fried him for getting 'Tara pregnant even if they had been married. Zuko had considered Onwei a trusted friend and in the end...

Onwei had protected his wife as men should and had died. Lea and Taro were now orphaned of a parent.

The assassins had paid for it with their skin and freedom, and after he ringed every bit of information from them they would pay in their blood and lives.

At Iroh's funeral, he had been sad, but tearless. At his son-in-law's funeral he would be not shed a tear, even if his eyes like warmed amber were wet and cracked with stress.

There was no water in him for that.

The Fire Heiress Katara grew up without a mother. To many it was strange but to her it was business as usual. She had never had a mother, so had nothing to miss. Her father was her parent-strong and fun and loving and everything one should be.

Still, he could not be around her all of the time.

"Do you miss her?" one of her 'friends,' the type who spent most of their time chatting at court as their parents battled with words for station.

"Who?"

"Your mother," the girl had spoken softly.

Katara had just grinned that fake grin and took it. "Of course not."

Katara's mother had been a surrogate. She had never met the woman, and did not really have the urge to. Shioma had been a member of the southern water tribe. She had been older then father and contracted to carry a Fire heir for many reasons, even if Zuko had never informed anyone of them.

One day, when Katara was getting too old for bedtime stories but refusing to admit it, she had looked up at her father, from a comfortable seat a foot away, "Daddy, why did you name me Katara?"

He looked at her then, his gaze suddenly hooded, but kind as they always were towards her, even if she knew they were harsh and maybe cruel at court. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," she first mumbled, playing with her sheet. then she straightened and looked back at him. "It's just..." she paused a moment, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. "It was after your friend, right? The one you said wasn't your best friend." She continued on then, knowing for a fact that she was named after the girl in blue. "But, why name me after her."

He looked at her, as if weighing his words. She could not see the pain in them, could not name the dark emotion not directed at her but at his memories. They would stick with her, that darkness in the familiar amber.

"I like that name," he eventually said, softly. Quietly in a way that he had always been for as long as he could remember. 'Tara remembered once, when Grandfather, the man that Daddy called 'Uncle,' had muttered how Daddy had been so quiet for a long time, and that confused her. But she was starting to understand. She doesn't know everything.

Later, after Onwei is ash, he sits over her bed again. It is almost as if she is just a little girl again, and he a perfect Daddy who is reading her stories even if her female nanny mutters how she is too old for them. 'Tara looks up at the man, gold looking into gold. Except it isn't, and she looks behind him, to a mantle just over his shoulder and a large mirror there.

She hurts all over. He forces a straw into her mouth and tells her, "Drink." She doesn't really want to. But does as she is told.

"Daddy, does it ever get better?" She sounds like a little girl again, some of it memory interfering, and some of it is the pained and dehydrated squeak in her voice. He remains cool as he looks down at her, almost like a statue, except his eyes crinkle sadly and his mouth pinches for a second. He never looks unfazed, she thinks. Except she remembers the anger in his eyes when he caught the assassins a second too late, remembers the inferno burning behind his eyes. She cannot see it now.

Finally, he shakes his head slightly. "No." The room is quiet. For once she is not shaking and shivering with broken sobs. "It never gets better. Not really."

'Tara shakes again, this time cocooning in a sort of bun beneath layers of sheets and comforters the way Uncle Sokka and his water kids had taught him.

"You just get used to the pain. You focus on something else." His hands shake and she notices it because he is always composed and now isn't. "Taro and litle Lea need you, you know." She hasn't seen them much since Onwei was killed. She certainly doesn't want them to see her. When Zuko is not with her, he is with them.

(And when the retired Fire Lord is not with them, he is temporarily taking the reigns as The Fire Lord in making sure he is there and very visible in the torture of his son-in-law's assassinators.)

'Tara takes comfort in that, but does miss them. "Tell me a story, Daddy," she says softly. And as he leans back a bit to get comfortable and crosses his arms to pick one out, the mourning Fire Queen looks back at the mirror. She notices now, how her eyes have amber in them. They don't look so much gold now, as burning gasoline at dawn or dusk when the light is never quite right.

She falls asleep to an old tale about two lovers seperated by a mountain and their warring villagers that do not even know why they are fighting. She has heard this before, and dreams of two people in the dark who promise to find each other in the next life. And in her dream the eyes flash once, blue and gold.

Zuko leaves his daughter sleeping quietly for once. He too is quiet. How can he tell her that he named her Katara because every time he says her name he mourns her, remembers her too? And that one day he believes he will scream her name to the heavens, and this time he can do it out loud so the world will here.

Zuko dies an old man with grey hair and failing eyes. He does not go in his sleep, but awake. The nurse has remarked how astounded she is that he has not gotten the liquid in his lungs. He is seated on a lounge out by the pond. Turtle ducks quack and play. His great-grandchildren play. The sun hides behind a light blanket of clouds so it is not too bright.

He looks at the water, at the animals, and remembers his mother. His children play and laugh around him. And he? He is a beloved patriarch. Even after so many years, with more spent in love than in hatred. It still astounds him.

He looks at the water then, and relaxes to the back of his lounge. His nightmares have long contained lightning and hatred, but now he remembers the blue eyes, of icebergs, and falling in the air and getting caught by a strong hand.

He looks up into the sky, once again, with his eyes so gold. His daughter looks over when he kills her name. "Katara." And he breathes out.

End.