Chapter Text
The Southern Water Tribe had come a long way from the tiny village of his earliest memories— when it had been little more than a handful of tents and scattered igloos tucked behind bare walls of snow.
Since the end of the war, it had been almost entirely transformed.
Aang guided Appa over the booming harbor, where Water Tribe catamarans docked alongside retrofitted Fire Nation cruisers and Earth Kingdom merchant galleons. A beautifully constructed lighthouse stood like a beacon of glass at the mouth of the frozen bay, the afternoon sun casting prisms through its columns and out across the water.
In the early years of Southern Reconstruction, many had been angered by too much Northern influence on infrastructure and government organization, but Aang saw little of that influence now in the towering buildings, robust bridgeways, and the recently completed Hall of Elders—a wide, circular, amphitheater-style building near the Chieftain's Palace.
The air, cold and crisp in his lungs, no longer smelled of clean, undisturbed ice, but of oil and industry. Trails of steam and smoke curled lazily in the afternoon air, their paths disturbed by Appa’s passage.
The White Lotus, in a show of support for Southern Reconstruction, had built a residential compound within the palace grounds, which also encompassed a living space for present and future Avatars.
It was for its single, distant tower that Aang angled Appa.
Even now, he thought, as they glided lower, after so much time and change, the South Pole represented one thing to him more than anything else: Katara.
He could feel her here, like a breath on the wind, a changing of the air currents.
As he eased around the palace parapets, waving to some of the guards as he passed, he could see the bright blue spot of her waiting for him against the blinding snow. When she spotted them, her hands waved excitedly overhead.
His heart lifted immediately.
Spirits, he’d missed her. Three months had felt like a hundred. She’d been in the South helping to train the next generation of her tribe’s waterbenders, and she would be here at least another three or four months until graduation.
Momo chirped and poked his head out the top of Aang’s robe, spotted Katara, and jumped to Appa’s horn in excitement. He understood the sentiment.
As soon as Appa landed outside the compound gates and Aang slid down his side, Katara was flying into his arms in a tangle of heavy skirts and loose hair. Momo circled them excitedly, landing on Katara’s shoulder and pressing against her back. Aang clutched her against him, arms tight, and it was like reclaiming a piece of himself—the smell of jasmine and freshly fallen snow, the warmth of her through her coat. The only time he truly resented being the Avatar now was when it took him from her.
He spun her around, pulled back, and met her halfway in a firm kiss, her lips a burning point of heat against the cold.
“You’re late,” she said, eyes gleaming, cheeks flushed. Their breath was forming a gold-tinged cloud around them.
He pulled away slightly to tuck a loose strand of hair from her face, drinking her in. “And you’re beautiful.”
She rolled her eyes, but a smile caught on the edge of her tooth as she bit down on her bottom lip.
“You’ll have just enough time to change and meet with the Chief before the wedding.”
He set her back down on her feet but kept his arms around her. “We got caught in a storm on the way, had to take a detour.”
She nodded, and her brow furrowed for a moment as if she were considering something, making some choice. “Come on, we have a few minutes.”
She shifted out of his grip to tug on his hand as several White Lotus servants came forward to guide Appa to his pen. Aang gave him an affectionate parting pat, and Momo took off after them for the promise of treats.
“Minutes for what?”
Katara threw a look over her shoulder—dark, almost syrupy—that told him he was being an idiot, and heat burst low in his groin. He started to walk faster, quickly outpacing her as they hurried past amused-looking guards, across a lovely ice-sculpted courtyard, and through massive granite front doors that creaked loudly as Aang pushed them open with a burst of air and again when he rapidly closed them behind him.
Katara pulled, and he pushed until she was crowded back against the wall of the dimly lit entryway –one of his hands braced on the wall above her head, the other splayed across her neck, feeling the warmth of her skin above the high collar of her coat, the fur tickling over his knuckles. He felt her pulse quicken, like the flutter of wings against his fingertips.
“I missed you,” she said, her eyes on his mouth, her body languid and soft against his.
She was a temptation he could rarely deny himself, and he shifted his grip to tip her chin back with his thumb as he found her lips with his.
She deepened the contact immediately, parting her lips and pressing up into him.
Always eager, his Katara.
He smiled into her mouth as he stroked his tongue along hers, chasing the taste of mulled wine and sweet pears. She made a soft sound at the back of her throat, and he tangled his hand in her hair, anchoring himself against the delicate nape of her neck as his other hand grasped her thigh as it lifted against his side.
It felt like a dance, steps they knew through instinct and connection as he pressed his hips into the juncture of her thighs, earning him a shivering sigh as her head fell back with a muted thump against the wall. Her eyes were dark and lidded, cheeks rosy, lips kiss-rough and wet. The sight of her turned his growing erection into a hard and undeniable presence between them.
He pressed his mouth to the spot she liked most, just below the line of her jaw where the scent of jasmine was strongest, dipping his tongue out to taste. Another almost dreamy sigh, and her hand lifted to press against the back of his head, the other digging sharp nails through his tunic.
“Hate being away from you,” he said, voice rough, as he made patterns with his lips along her throat and up to the shell of her ear. Her breath was hot and fast against the side of his neck as she clung to him.
He loved her like this. Needy. Undone.
It made something fierce and protective swell in his chest.
The lights of the hall flicked on. “Avatar Aang, we welcome you to the Southern Water Tribe—oh!”
Aang sprang away from Katara, the intrusion like a bucket of snow down his back as he blinked at the White Lotus council member staring wide-eyed at them from the other end of the hall. She had a hand pressed against her chest, expression scandalized.
Aang sighed, stepping reluctantly away from Katara, who looked more annoyed than embarrassed.
“Greetings, High Lotus Jeno,” he said with a bow, one that the older woman returned stiltedly.
“We were just…” Aang trailed off, looking at Katara for help, but she only pulled down primly on the hem of her coat and lifted her chin. “Saying hello?”
“My apologies for the interruption, Avatar,” Jeno said, folding her hands with a great show of care before her. “Chief Hakoda awaits you.”
He exchanged another glance with Katara and cleared his throat into a fist. “Er, right, I will go…change.”
High Lotus Jeno looked impassively imperious, and Aang bit back a sigh of exasperation. So much for privacy.
He turned to Katara, who looked distinctly mutinous, her eyes narrowed and mouth sullen. He knocked her gently under the chin with a knuckle. “I’ll see you at the wedding.”
She exhaled heavily, sending a glare in Jeno’s direction. “Don’t be late,” she said, gripping the front of his robe for a quick, firm kiss before walking, head raised high, out the front doors into the blinding cold.
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Chief Hakoda met him at the door to the palace meeting rooms with a broad, friendly smile.
Aang’s throat tightened, and he resisted the urge to tug at the high collar of his tunic. The man had only ever been supportive of him and Katara’s relationship, but he was still her father, and he suspected there would never come a time when that didn’t make him at least a little nervous.
“Avatar Aang,” Hakoda said with a deep bow.
“Chief Hakoda,” Aang replied, returning the gesture.
A smile split the older man’s serious expression as soon as he straightened, and he extended an arm to draw Aang into a rough, back-slapping hug.
“Good to see you, son. Sorry to pull you away before the party, but there are a few things I need your eyes on.”
Aang smiled, pulling away as a pair of guards opened the doors to admit them into the rooms beyond. “Of course, happy to be of assistance.”
Hakoda huffed a laugh. “If I know my daughter, she’s angry I stole you away.”
Aang ducked his head slightly to hide his blush as they walked through the well-furnished antechamber to an office just beyond. The palace didn’t carry the same elegant, ancient refinement as the Northern Tribe, but its sharp lines of gleaming ice and proud arches spoke to a sense of strength and fierce independence.
The other man turned to smile at him. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long. Mostly, I need you to look over our plans for opening oil refineries. We’re very conscious of the potential environmental damage, so we want to ensure we have your blessing before we begin construction.”
Aang nodded and settled into the chair Hakoda indicated with a wave of his hand as he took a seat opposite behind a large paper-strewn desk. They settled into the work, reviewing several large drafting sheets of construction plans as well as a map that indicated the areas for potential drilling sites.
Aang agreed to check the sites for any potential spiritual hazards, and Hakoda rose to escort him back outside. The sun was near setting, cupped between the sloping mountain peaks behind the palace as they walked side by side along the promenade.
“You honor Silla and Ryst, coming to their wedding,” Hakoda remarked, bowing to a passing council member.
“They are close friends of Katara’s, and they helped save my life. Of course I came.”
The hint of a wistful smile touched the older man’s lips as they crossed into the spectacular ice garden beyond, the last golden rays of the sun sparkling through crystalline tree branches and inside the petals of ice-hewn flowers like sparks of captured flame.
“Maybe someday you and Katara will hold a celebration of your own,” Hakoda added, the remark almost casual. It tilted the ground beneath Aang’s feet, and he stumbled awkwardly across the paving stones.
“Er, I mean, I’m sure—”
Hakoda laughed and slapped him on the back. “No rush, of course, you are both still very young. Plenty of time for weddings later.”
Aang felt rather faint as he nodded. “Right of course…later…weddings.”
“We’re early,” Hakoda remarked as they reached a large amphitheater where the first few guests were milling about outside closed doors. “I see Councilwoman Morna, if you’ll excuse me, I will see you inside.”
He left Aang rather dazed at the foot of a grand staircase, at the cusp of the garden, suddenly unmoored. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of marriage before, at least in the abstract. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Katara; he recognized that for most people, that meant vows and the exchange of tokens.
All of which his culture provided no context for.
“The blue sash was an excellent choice,” said a familiar voice, and Aang turned to find Huria and Agna smiling up at him. They both looked lovely and hale in the dying light as servants moved through the garden, lighting lanterns among the branches, casting geometric patterns in the snow.
He managed to compose himself and smile. “Thank you, Katara’s influence, of course. How are things in the North, Agna?”
After the coup attempt and Chief Berian’s resolute removal of all statues barring women from bending and the military, Agna had ultimately decided to remain in the North to help train the next generation of female benders.
“Oh, well enough, I suppose,” she sighed. “Quiet without my friends.”
Huria looped her arm through Agna’s and bumped her with a hip. “Save your dreary melancholy for the ceremony.”
Aang chuckled as the doors to the amphitheater opened, and together they moved up the steps. Tinkling music drifted into the evening air, melding with the breeze and snow. The amber warmth of lantern flame and dimmed electric bulbs painted everything in shades of yellow and golden-orange.
The women removed their coats, handing them over to waiting servants, and Aang hesitated at the threshold, unsure if he ought to wait inside or out. A hand on his arm drew him around, and all the breath left his lungs in a harsh exhale.
“You clean up nice, Avatar,” Katara said, a smirk dancing across her lips, blue eyes gleaming with pleasure.
She smoothed a possessive hand over the front of his tunic and across the fall of his tightly wrapped robe that was draped across one shoulder, her expression admiring.
Someday, he thought distantly, I’ll get used to how beautiful she is.
He had a sneaking suspicion this would never be the case.
Katara’s hair had been braided up and away from her face into an intricate pile atop her head, the strands threaded with dripping pearls and gleaming crystals that caught the light like stars nested in the deep brown of her curls. There was the hint of cosmetics deepening the hue of her lips and elongating the tilt of her eyes, the effect almost ethereal.
Aang startled as a servant reached for the clasp of his cloak, and he clumsily removed it himself, handing it over sheepishly just in time to watch Katara shrug off her fur-lined, velvet cloak. Beneath it, she was wearing a stunningly beautiful dress in deep midnight that flowed like water over her body.
The shimmering silk hugged her breasts and stomach, clasped with a silver crescent moon just below where her mother’s betrothal necklace sat, and flaring out past her hips to the floor in a slight train. Chiffon, the color of clear water, draped from her elbows, embroidered with more pearls and crystals, leaving her arms above the elbow bare to the lovely curve of her shoulders. There was a high slit up one side that gave a tantalizing glimpse of her shapely calf and smooth thigh.
He was reminded of another night, several years ago now, in the Earth Kingdom, when they’d kissed beneath the moon. Then, like now, she looked like a dream.
When she turned to hand her coat off, Aang inhaled sharply, admiration shifting quickly to a dizzying spike of pure desire as he took in her bare, sculpted back and miles of warm brown skin—a thin silver chain connected the clasp of the dress at the back of her neck with the low dip of fabric at the very base of her spine. He wanted to trace its path with his fingers…and then his mouth.
His hands clenched tightly at his side, and his jaw flexed as he tried to get a grip on his deeply inappropriate reaction. The Avatar walking into a very public wedding with an erection was not the sort of attention either of them needed.
“Katara!” Huria exclaimed and rushed forward. “Hug me while your boyfriend picks his jaw up off the floor.”
Agna snorted, Aang flushed hot, and Sokka appeared looking dashing in his formal military uniform.
“Did I miss Aang drooling all over my sister?”
“Just barely,” Agna said, shooting Aang a wink, and he lifted his chin and scowled at them all, feeling petulant.
Katara, her own cheeks tinged pink, wrapped herself around his arm. “Leave the poor man alone, we haven’t seen each other in months.”
Sokka made a gagging sound and threw his arms around Huria and Agna’s shoulders. “Come on, ladies, let's go find our seats before they start making out.”
Aang took this opportunity to lean down and press a kiss to Katara’s temple.
“You look stunning, Katara,” he managed through a thickened throat, and she gave him a brilliant smile in return before tugging him into the entryway beyond.
It didn’t occur to him until he and Katara were seated in the front row of a large circle of chairs—the curse of his station—that he had never been to a wedding. He knew what was meant to happen in theory, but in practice, he had no idea what to expect.
At the center of the circle was a raised dais with a massive arch that was hung with flowers. Two great torches flanked either side, and between them sat a table with a silver basin and what looked like a finely made fur cloak. A man in billowing blue robes stood to one side of the table, and Ryst—looking very fine in his Captain’s uniform—stood at the other.
To Aang’s eyes, the other man looked very nervous, fidgeting with the thick sash at his waist and shifting his weight from one foot to the other every few seconds. A smile was fixed to his face as he threw Katara and Huria a small, awkward wave.
He had a sudden panicked thought—what if they expected him to speak? He was here primarily as a friend, but he’d learned a long time ago that he was rarely ever just a man, even when–– especially when—that was all he was trying to be. What would he even say?
Aang glanced sideways at Katara, seated gracefully at his side, her legs crossed demurely at the ankle and her back straight. He swallowed and boldly set his hand on her thigh, feeling the heat of her through the silk. Her lashes flicked upwards as she met his sidelong stare and set her hand over his, intertwining their fingers. It was like coming back down to earth.
“We summon the bride to walk amongst her tribe and receive their blessing,” the robed man said, voice carrying, and many heads craned.
Katara tipped closer to him. “Silla has to walk through each ring of the circle, and we’re meant to touch her dress and offer a blessing.”
He leaned towards her. “What kind of blessing?”
He could see the curve of her smile past the gentle slope of her nose. “Whatever you want. Something from the heart.”
He caught sight of Silla then, across the distance, making her way past the first row of chairs. She was dressed in white, the gown styled like the traditional wrap dress of the water tribes but trimmed in fine fur and embroidered with silver thread that twinkled in the torchlights. Her dark hair was elegantly braided and held back by a delicate diadem depicting the moon and sea against her brow—very different from her normally casual and practical appearance.
When she made it at last to them, looking radiant and joyful, she stopped and bowed low to him.
“You honor us with your presence, Avatar Aang.”
He swallowed, nodded his head, and reached out to touch a fold of her dress, the hide soft against his fingers.
“I wish you and Ryst all the happiness this world has to offer, Silla,” he said quietly, and he could practically feel people craning their necks closer to try and hear him.
Katara reached out to grasp Silla’s dress as well, tears glistening in her eyes. “May your union be blessed by the moon and her tides, my friend.”
Silla smiled at them, moisture glittering against her lashes, and she turned to finish her slow path around the room, people murmuring blessings in her wake. She stopped at last before a man whom Aang presumed was her father, seated in the very last chair. The older man rose and led her up the few short steps of the dais, and with great solemnity, he kissed her cheek and handed her into Ryst’s waiting arms.
The poor man looked rather dazed as he guided her to stand hand in hand before the ceremonial table.
“The tribe has spoken,” the robed man said, raising his hands above his head where the moon shone down from the clear ice dome above. “And their blessings have been woven into the fabric of this union. Now, we stand beneath the watchful eyes of Tui and La. We call upon the Moon to guide their path, and the Ocean to lend her strength, as we witness the blending of two currents into one.”
Ryst stepped forward then, a necklace of finely carved bone in his hands, the betrothal charm he’d made for her set at its center. Clasping it with fumbling fingers behind her neck, he said, “Silla, with this necklace, I bind my spirit to yours. I carve my devotion into bone to honor our ancestors, and I pledge my unwavering loyalty to you and your family.”
Next to Aang, Katara had wrapped her hands around his arm and was leaning into his side. He allowed himself to lean into her warmth, the smell of her skin a heady distraction, but one that tethered him to the moment.
Ryst moved to carefully pick up the heavy white cloak from the table, unfurling it in his hands. Silla turned, bowing her head slightly as Ryst stepped up behind her to drape the garment about her shoulders, saying, “Silla, with this cloak, I shield you from the storm. I vow to be your warmth in the long night, to provide for our hearth, and to stand as your protector.”
There was an unsettled feeling growing in his chest, a sort of…visceral defiance against what felt like a claiming of ownership. The gestures were lovely, the cultural significance important, but to Aang, the concepts themselves felt…wrong somehow.
Silla turned around and dipped a small silver cup into the basin of water, holding it out to Ryst’s lips as she said, “Ryst, with this water, I blend my currents with yours. I vow to nurture our home, to be the calm in your storm, and to face the shifting tides by your side.”
She set the glass aside and kissed him softly, lingeringly on his lips. “Ryst, with this kiss, I seal our promises. I offer you my breath and my trust, under the watchful light of the Moon and the endless depths of the Ocean.”
The robed man stepped forward, raising his hands once more. "As two streams meet to face the open sea, so too do Silla and Ryst step forward together. May your hearth forever burn bright, and may your tides remain unbroken. Elders and friends, welcome them as one."
Aang rose awkwardly to his feet as the room, which had been deeply ceremonial and peaceful a moment before, erupted into a standing wave of cheering and hollering. He clapped his hands and smiled, sincerely happy if his friends were happy. On the dais, Ryst grabbed Silla around the waist and dipped her low in his arms, sealing the moment with another kiss.
Aang cheered along with everyone else, looking down at Katara. He noted the tears in her eyes and the soft, joyful look on her face, and his heart sank a little. Was this what she wanted? Would he be expected to lay claim to her like this before the entire world?
The very idea of it went against everything he’d been taught…and yet… here he was, wishing desperately that he could tie his life, his very being to her. He didn’t know what to think or feel, he realized.
Katara caught his look, and her smile softened further, her love for him bright as the moon reflecting in her eyes. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her brow, wondering what he was meant to do.
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A massive feast followed the wedding, and Aang, to his own internal mortification, was the first to be served by the newlyweds, an ancient tradition where they symbolically—and sometimes literally—provided from their joined hearth.
Katara patted him sympathetically on the thigh as he fixed a smile on his face. He took a careful bite of potatoes and some of the vegetables and snuck bites of the meat to Katara, who had to wait to eat until after the Elders had all been served before filling her own plate from the heaping tables at the other end of the room.
“I’m sorry Suki couldn’t make it,” Katara said to her brother once the meal had really begun. Aang glanced at his friend and noted he did look rather morose over his sea-prune stew.
“Who is Suki?” Huria asked.
Sokka let out a deep, forlorn sigh, propping an elbow on the table and cupping the side of his face in a hand. “Only the most amazing, beautiful woman in the entire world.”
Katara rolled her eyes. “His girlfriend.”
“Are you sure she’s real?” Huria muttered, and Sokka threw her a withering glare as she made a show of picking innocently at her vegetables.
“Where is she?” asked Agna, wiping her mouth on a napkin.
Sokka sank back into his theatrical despair. “Heroically defending the Fire Lord with her life.”
Huria raised a brow, and Katara once again translated. “She and the other Kyoshi warriors serve as the personal bodyguards of Fire Lord Zuko.”
Agna whistled while Sokka dragged his fork through his gravy.
“Do you think the two of you will get married?” Huria asked, then added a defensive, “What?” when Agna gave her a sharp look.
Aang’s knife scraped loudly over his plate, drawing everyone’s eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered, trying to appear unaffected and noting the hint of concern in Katara’s glance. He seriously needed to get a grip on himself.
“I want to,” Sokka whined. “We’re just both so busy and far apart.”
Katara patted her brother lightly on his head as his face slipped into the crook of his arm.
“I’m sure it will work out,” Agna said kindly while Huria pulled a face, eyes fixed on her plate.
The conversation turned to an upcoming festival, and Katara leaned into his side. “Are you okay?” she asked, voice pitched low.
Occasionally, he hated how well she could read him.
He smiled at her, forcing his own internal existential crisis to the back of his mind where it couldn’t ruin the evening. “I’m great, I promise.”
She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before returning his smile. “Do you want to trade me your blubber-seal for my roasted vegetables?”
He chuckled, and a wash of affection brought with it a wave of guilt. He was sitting next to the most beautiful woman in the world, whose bed he would get to share later that night, and he was allowing himself to get bogged down in moral philosophy.
“Deal,” he said, ducking his head to steal a quick kiss. Her responding smile lit him up from the inside.
“Stop loving each other,” Sokka snapped. “It's insensitive to my suffering.”
“We are at a wedding,” Huria reminded him.
Sokka sniffled. “Someone pass me the melon pear wine, I’m going to drown my sorrows.”
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After the meal was finished, they were set loose into a massive ice-covered ballroom with a clear dome of glassy ice high overhead. The half-moon shone brightly, and the stars glittered; the effect was enchanting. Magical.
Music played from a band tucked away in the gallery above, and they all stood in a circle to watch as Silla and Ryst had their first dance. Katara leaned into his side, and he wrapped an arm around her, trying desperately not to get distracted by just how much available skin there was for him to touch.
This he understood.
The movement and freedom of bodies entwined, caught in the same rhythm, like leaves swirling together in the wind. Silla and Ryst were beaming and laughing as they spun gracefully through the steps, and he imagined that for them, they were the only two people in the world. He smiled to himself, his arm tightening around Katara.
When the dance finished, the observers clapped and hollered, and the couple motioned for everyone to join them. Aang met Katara’s eye, and they fell easily into each other's arms.
Behind Katara, Huria was dragging Sokka towards the dance floor. “Come on, you big baby, you can step on my toes and tell me all about your perfect, amazing girlfriend.”
Sokka reluctantly agreed, launching immediately into an exhaustive list of Suki’s many qualities. Aang shook his head, amused and sympathetic.
He led Katara fluidly through the roaming couples as the music began to play—a soft, beautiful tune that sounded like starlight and snowfall. A modern ballad, one that was playing all over Republic City, but its tempo was slower. His hand smoothed along the bare skin of Katara’s lower back as he pulled her into the first steps, the cool silver chain brushing over the back of his hand in contrast to the heat of her body. The feel of her was electrifying, and he took in a shaky breath as she watched him with keen eyes.
She knew exactly what she was doing to him in this dress.
He spun her away, skirts fanning in a wave, her long leg on full display, her silk slippers tied with silver ribbons around her trim ankles. Three months of long, lonely nights in their bed were demanding that he drag her to the nearest dark corner and ravish her.
He considered, not for the first time, that if he weren’t the Avatar, that's probably exactly what he would do.
“This dress is a safety hazard,” he told her seriously as he drew her back into his arms.
She lifted a brow. “Oh?”
“Yes,” he said with a firm nod, twirling her between his arms and dipping her slightly. “Every time I look at you, I forget what I’m doing, and I could drop you.”
She laughed, the sound bright, and he spun her out again. She looked happy, light, and free. Her smiles were easy in a way that they weren’t always when things were difficult back in the City.
“Maybe we can leave early,” she said, her voice a velvety murmur, breath ghosting along his jaw.
He let his hand wander up and down her back slowly, sending shivers through her like ripples across a lake, feeling the ridges of her spine with the tips of his fingers. “I suspect people would notice.”
She tipped her head back to study him, her cheeks rosy, her eyes dark like fathomless seas. “Would that bother you?”
It took everything in him not to kiss her there on the dance floor, couples milling around them, her brother not far, her father somewhere in the crowd, watching no doubt.
“No,” he breathed, though he knew that perhaps it should. Knew that he should care how people perceived them. But the need to get her alone, to feel her around him, was becoming a physical pain.
“We’ll make our rounds, shake some hands… and then go?” Her fingers teased along the back of his neck, her eyes fixed on his lips.
Aang swallowed, spinning her again as he tried to gather himself. In truth, he wanted to take her hand right then and simply drag her off the floor and into the cover of night.
“Alright,” he managed, his voice thick, and her smile was both radiant and somehow deeply salacious.
It took him nearly an hour to extract himself from a sea of grinning dignitaries and fawning well-wishers, and when he finally did—moving across the crowded room with purpose—it took him a moment to find her. She was surrounded by a group of people, mostly women, near the main doors. They were laughing and chatting loudly. Someone said something to her—Huria maybe—that had her dabbing tears of laughter from her eyes.
She belongs here, he thought with a sudden sinking feeling in his chest that was like the slip of the wind while riding a current.
He knew she loved Republic City, that it meant the world to her, but she never looked as she did now—at ease, certain of herself, surrounded by her people and culture…two things he no longer had to offer.
He forced himself to breathe through the ache of this thought as Katara looked up and caught his eye, her smile blinding. He watched as she extracted herself immediately, and Aang met her at the door.
“I hate to pull you away if you’re having fun,” he said, and she stepped into his space, prompting him to drape a hand along the bare heat of her back.
She gave him that look again, like he was being an idiot. “Don’t be silly, let's get our cloaks and have them bring a carriage around for us.”
They avoided several curious sets of eyes as they navigated their way through a dimly lit hall towards the antechamber beyond. He took her hand in his, and she gathered her skirts in the other, and then they were half running across the marbled tiles, laughing and joyful, and his melancholy was momentarily forgotten, caught in the gravity of her orbit.
Once they reached the coatroom, he helped her into her cloak and then into the carriage when it arrived a few moments later.
When the heavy door clicked shut, casting them in silver-varnished darkness, the playfulness between them evaporated almost immediately under the heat of something far more intense. Something that made his throat constrict and his cock stir and grow hard just from the look in her eyes across the small space.
The next moment, she was a warm and solid weight in his lap, her feverish mouth connecting messily with his in a kiss that drove all thought from his mind. He was in a free fall, with only her there to catch him.
His hands thrust past the heavy fall of her cloak to find the bare skin of her thigh and the smooth expanse of her spine, sculpted muscles trembling beneath his touch. His fingers dipped past the edge of the gown to discover… nothing but bare flesh, a fact which briefly robbed him of breath and thought.
When his faculties returned enough to speak, he broke their kiss with a low, needy sort of whine. “Fuck, Katara, really?”
All night she’d had nothing beneath her gown, nothing to prevent him from—
He could practically taste her smirk as she pressed her tongue past his lips again, curling into him like smoke on water.
“I told you I missed you,” she panted as his hand shifted further down to cup the curve of her backside, kneading and squeezing as he felt increasingly out of control.
The carriage rocked around them, ambling along outside the palace towards the White Lotus compound, and he might as well have been on the surface of the moon. There was nothing but her and the gravity of her body and the feel of her between his hands.
She was going to be the death of him, he was certain of it.
But two could play her wicked games.
He pulled back further, head resting against the cushions, and held her stare as he shifted his hand on her thigh slowly higher, beneath the slit of her dress that was drawn taut between them.
“Let me see how much,” he murmured, watching her lashes flutter and her eyes dilate in the darkness as he chased the heat he could feel radiating from between her thighs.
He cursed again when he found the liquid warmth of her with his fingers, slipping between her folds, teasing the small nub of her pleasure and making her entire body quiver like a tree caught in a sudden gale.
“So wet, love,” he said against her beautiful throat as her nails scratched at his shoulders, the back of his scalp, anywhere she could reach, and she whimpered incoherently at him.
He loved that sound; it was arguably his favorite sound in the world—the cadence of her undoing.
His cock ached between them, desperate for release, but he’d become exceptionally good at suppressing his own gratification for hers over the past few years. He could spend hours, days, weeks, making her come apart and never grow tired of it. Still, his hips rolled, instinctive, helpless.
He slowly pressed two of his fingers inside her, and her head fell heavily onto his shoulder as she keened, cunt clenching around him as he thrust insistently into her. They didn’t have much time; they had to be getting close to the compound by now, but she was so wet and shivery in his arms, he didn’t think it would take long.
His other hand felt heavy, clumsy even, as he used it to drag her lips back to his, driving his fingers into her with practiced abandon. He knew by now how to touch her, the way to curl his fingers to make her tremble, to send her hips canting into the rhythm. He thrust his tongue into her mouth in time with his fingers, absorbing her whimpering moans, drowning in the feel of her.
She pulled away with a desperate cry that she only barely managed to stifle by pressing her teeth into her bottom lip, eyes rolling into the back of her head.
Katara had no pretense. There was never any shame or inhibition in her reactions to his touch— it was intoxicating, precious. It made him feel like he could conquer the world.
Aang kissed her chest through her dress, her throat, her shoulders—any part of her he could reach as wet heat spread across his palm, and she unraveled against him like a storm caught along the coast, furious and impossible to hold. He worked her through it, chasing the eddies, drawing out her pleasure until she was limp against his chest.
The carriage lurched, beginning to slow.
He pulled his hand away, wiping the moisture there on the inside of his cloak as he carefully rearranged her limbs in his lap. He glanced at her face—her eyes dazed, tendrils of hair sticking to her damp forehead, breathing uneven.
She was so lovely, so dear—so often she didn’t feel quite real to him, a vision from a dream that couldn’t possibly be his to keep. He kissed her gently on her slightly parted lips, and she hummed at him affectionately.
He tucked her face into his neck as the carriage came to a stop outside the compound gates. The carriage likely smelled of sex, but the man who opened the carriage door did so swiftly and with eyes averted and expression composed. Aang supposed he couldn’t ask for more than that.
The blast of cool air was bracing, but it gave him the strength he needed to haul them back into reality, at least for a moment or two, until he could get her safely into his bed.
Katara looped her arms around his neck as he maneuvered them out of the carriage and into the glowing snow. He adjusted her in his arms and carried her through the open gates, through the courtyard they’d chased each other through earlier that day, and finally set her gently on her feet so he could push open the doors.
Inside, he flicked on the light and helped her with her cloak, smiling with satisfaction at the mess he’d made of her hair and the wrinkles in her gown. There was a pleasured glow to her lovely skin—an unmistakable flush. She gave him a look, eyes narrowed, a smile twitching at her kiss-swollen lips.
“You look very satisfied with yourself.”
He chuckled and threw his cloak on the rack beside hers before drawing her back into his arms. He nudged his nose along hers. “So do you.”
She huffed at him before drawing him down into a kiss that deepened immediately, that spark of need still flickering between them. His hands smoothed up the expanse of her bare back, toying with that maddening chain of silver as he went.
“You know,” he said conversationally as he kissed along her jaw towards her ear, “I spent all night wanting to take this dress off you.” He dropped his hands to grab her backside through the silk, making her gasp softly. “And now… I think I want you to leave it on.”
She pulled away, taking his hand with a smile that promised everything. “If you’re lucky, you may be able to have both.”
-
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-
When he woke later, he could tell from the quality of the air that it was very late.
He turned to his side and reached blurrily across the bed to find nothing but cool, empty sheets. Alarm drove sleep from his mind, and he sat up in the darkness of the room.
The door was slightly ajar, a light from further down the hall illuminating the furniture and wall hangings. Katara’s dress was still on the back of a nearby chair where he’d thrown it, and her robe was missing from the hanger near the door.
He got quickly to his feet, dressed only in loose linen undergarments slung low on his hips. Slipping into the hall, he paused, but was greeted only by silence.
Still…he suspected he knew where she had gone.
He padded down the hallway, past several doors—an office, a bathroom, a guest room, and a small library—until he reached a set of stairs that curved down. The light fixture above the staircase was lit, a clear indication he was headed in the right direction. Halfway down the steps, the humidity and temperature of the air began to shift dramatically.
At the bottom of the steps, there was a granite cavern, the walls slick with moisture, and he followed a tunnel until it opened into a lush underground garden, at the center of which was a natural hot spring. Creeping ferns and thermal mosses lined the rocks, mingling with broadleaf plants he’d brought back from his Earth Kingdom travels. Electric lights hung from flower-shaped glass fixtures above, their light comfortably dim and warm.
Aang had personally built the space when the compound was under construction, providing a bit of vegetation and warmth in the icy tundra. Somewhere to escape to.
In truth, he’d built it for Katara.
And there she was, at the center of the steaming pool, her hair piled messily atop her head.
He let his feet slap against the stone so as not to startle her before he stepped across the mossy earth, moisture squelching between his toes.
She turned towards him, a soft, sheepish smile on her face.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a little sleep-rough.
She nodded, treading water gracefully, limbs gleaming faintly beneath the water. “Couldn’t sleep…join me?”
He smiled and removed his undergarments, hanging them with her robe on a peg on the wall. She watched him with interest as he moved, eyes tracing his body in a way that made his heart stutter a little in his chest.
He slid into the water, heat easing tired muscles, and he sighed. She didn’t move closer immediately, bobbing gently in the water, her eyes not quite meeting his. Her skin was gleaming with moisture, stray curls clinging to her damp neck and face, her cheeks reddened by the heat.
“Katara,” he said, keeping his tone gentle. “What is it?”
She shook her head, a smile curling at the corner of her lips. “It’s nothing, really.”
He knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but he also knew her well enough to know that she needed to come to things in her own time. There was something in her bearing, the set of her shoulders, and the tightness of her lips that told him she needed him to bridge the distance she’d built between them. Not with words, but with action.
He glided through the water, tall enough that his feet could remain firmly planted anywhere in the pool, and gathered her gently into his arms. She came willingly, setting her head on his chest, her arms wrapping loosely around his waist. He drew her backwards with him towards one of the shelves built into the lining of the pool and settled back with her in his arms. She curled against him, fingers painting thoughtless patterns with the drops of moisture on his chest.
He rubbed a thumb over her arm, waiting for her, patient and willing to hold her as long as she needed him to.
“What did you think? Of the ceremony, I mean?” she asked at last, not looking at him.
He tensed a little, touch stilling while he considered his words carefully. “It was very beautiful.” It was true, of course, but she knew him as well as he knew her. It was rare that they could truly keep their thoughts from one another for long.
“But?” she pressed, her fingers still making their patterns along his skin.
He smiled a little, letting his head fall back to be cushioned in the moss. “No buts, just…very different from how I was raised is all.”
She peeked up at him through her lashes, fingers stilling. “I thought your people didn’t practice marriage.”
“They didn’t,” he said, thinking how best to explain it and feeling woefully out of his depth. “They believed in nonattachment. The concept of…owning or laying claim to someone was antithetical to that belief."
She considered this for a long moment, her gaze falling away from his, her expression unreadable. “Is that what the ceremony felt like to you? A passing of ownership.”
He shrugged helplessly, but he could be nothing but honest with her in that moment. She deserved that from him. “Maybe a little.” He drew in a breath, trying to settle his rattled nerves. “It felt like…obligation, like Ryst was claiming her from her father, that she was no longer her own person.”
She nodded, brow creasing in thought. She reached beneath the water to draw his hand into hers, tracing the veins along the back of his hand. “I suppose that’s not far off from the truth, at least how it used to be. Women as property, men as their protectors.”
“I don’t mean to judge or diminish the traditions of your people, Katara,” he said, tone serious, insistent.
She smiled, though it was a passing thing. “I know you don’t. These days, that's really what the ceremonies are, I suppose… memory and tradition. Obviously, women can own property and hold positions of power, learn bending. I think the ceremony is the tribal duty, the marriage is what two people make it.”
“But the echoes of female subservience remain.” He understood her perspective; tradition was a powerful thing—for him too—but the longer the echoes of inequality remained, the more likely they were to find resonance again.
She made a soft sound of reluctant agreement, a wash of cool air across his chest. “You’re right, of course.”
He pulled her closer and kissed the side of her face, just below her brow. “It really was beautiful. The sense of community and care, the love that they clearly have for one another.”
She tipped her head back, resting in the crook of his arm, her lidded eyes on his lips. Her fingers released his hand and drifted instead to his chest, gliding up his sternum, tracing the ridges of his collarbone, and following the tendon of his neck. A shiver uncoiled at the base of his spine, making his breath catch.
“What would you have vows built on, then, if not ownership and obligation?”
He smiled slightly, drawing his hand out of the water to cup the side of her flushed face, smoothing his thumb over her cheekbone, jaw, the soft, tempting curve of her lower lip.
“Partnership,” he said, voice going rough.
Spirits, the effect she had on him… All it took was a glance, a fleeting touch.
His fingers eased down her neck, thumb pressing lightly against her throat, which made her lips part on a shaky exhale. “Love.”
He dipped his head to kiss her, drawing it out in the way he knew drove her mad—firm but glancing touches, a dance of anticipation, of yearning.
His fingers continued their journey over her shoulder and down beneath the water, over the rise of her breast. She shifted then, turning in his arms to straddle his hips in a rain of droplets like sparks of fire in the lamplight. Her wet hands cupped the sides of his face, his hardening length pressing up against the juncture of her thighs as she bit her lip.
“Compassion,” he croaked, feeling lightheaded from the heat and the slickness of her skin against his.
She hummed, nails scratching back over his scalp and down his back as she leaned closer.
“Pleasure,” he murmured into her chest before cupping a full breast in his hand and drawing the pebbled nipple into his mouth, tongue circling and teasing.
Her head fell back on a breathy moan, nails digging into his shoulders as he took his time tasting her, enjoying the way her thighs twitched against him as he pulled her nipple gently through his teeth.
She drew his face up to look at her, her breathing already fast, her lips parted. She pressed a thumb to his lip, drawing it down. He darted out his tongue, and she smiled shakily before dipping down to capture his mouth in a languid, penetrating kiss.
It felt like she was claiming him. Capturing him, her willing supplicant.
She shifted purposefully, and his hands fell to her hips, gently guiding her until she was slowly—so slowly—lowering herself onto him, taking him inside her inch by torturous inch.
He groaned into her mouth at the slick, perfect heat of her clenching around him, and she sighed in answer, hands sweeping up the expanse of his back, over his shoulders to grip at the flex of his arms. She pulled back slightly, and he flicked his tongue over her lips, using his teeth to nibble and tease as pleasure spooled out between them like sunlight over water.
Their earlier lovemaking had been frantic, desperate after so long apart, but this was different. More. Less a meeting of bodies and more a meeting of souls, a reconnection. Another way of speaking to each other.
He splayed a hand against her lower back, encouraging the rocking, undulating motion of her hips as she pulled away to stare down at him. Her pupils were blown wide, her hair nearly fallen from its tie, long curls clinging to her breasts and neck. He gathered the damp strands in his hand, fisting the mass at the back of her neck as she whimpered softly at the sharp sting.
“I love you,” she said, breathless, eyes lidded as she began to rock more earnestly against him, breasts dragging down his chest, disturbing the water as it splashed across the stones.
He bit back a moan and a fierce, near-overwhelming wave of possessiveness that ran counter to all his lofty ideals ripped through him. He wanted to claim her, keep her for himself, make her his in every way he could.
She was so tight, so perfectly made for him.
“I love you,” he managed. So much. More than anything.
He angled her head with the fist gripping her hair so he could plunder her mouth, dragging his tongue along hers in a messy tangle that had them both breathing hard.
Her rhythm began to falter as her release eluded her, and he pulled them both from the pool in a sudden rush of wind and water until she was laid out across the soft moss beneath him, startled but clearly pleased as she rolled her hips where they were still connected. He let out a harsh breath, knees digging into the soft ground as he found purchase. Looming above her, he looped one arm beneath her thigh and hitched the length of her dripping calf over his shoulder as he drove into her with a harsh snap of his hips.
She cried out his name, nails scraping down his forearms as her back arched.
Mine, he thought as he drove into her again, chasing the promise of completion as she began to tighten around him. Mine.
His rhythm turned punishing, his head hanging, breaths gasping, arms shaking as she moaned her release, the clench of her cunt pulling him down after her in a blinding haze of sensation and heat that left him panting against her chest. Her arms were wrapped around him, palm soothing up and down his spine as their hearts steadied.
“You’re right,” she said quietly, when their breathing had slowed.
With great effort, he managed to lift his head to look down at her, taking a great deal of male satisfaction in how wrung out and satisfied she looked between the cage of his arms.
“Your vows sounded better.”
He snorted softly and shook his head at her, stupidly, ridiculously in love with her as he kissed her.
Later, after they’d returned to bed and she’d fallen asleep in his arms, he studied her in the near-darkness, gently pulling the drying strands of her hair through his fingers. The curve of her brow, the slope of her nose, the splay of her lashes across her cheeks.
I want to marry her, he admitted to himself. I don’t know exactly how or in what manner, but I know I want her. Now and always.
He just had to figure out how to go about asking her.