Borealis: A Zutara Story
Part 1 Chapter 104
Chapter 104
The daily assaults continued although now Zuko didn’t just oil her genitals and jump her when he wanted sex. He would kiss or touch her first and he had begun to put his mouth between her legs. When he did that Katara had to remember Zuko was Fire Nation and the people of the Fire Nation were a people without morals.
In the Southern Water Tribe oral sex was known as The Act of Acceptance and was done to show commitment to another person. The first time it was done between couples was on the day they agreed to marry. To him, the act had no meaning, he was only using spit to wet her body prior to pushing his penis inside it. It would have been easier if Zuko did not repeatedly ask her to be his queen, spend his life with him and say he did not want children.
He did not know that she was afraid for her future; his lies and that act brought fragile comfort. He didn’t know she feared being forced to watch a woman capable of bearing children obtain the husband and family she always wanted while she lived a pitiful existence as his fur warmer. That is if Taruk, whose parents were killed in the raid, would even stoop so low as to disrespect his wife by taking away from her and his children to support Fire Nation leftovers.
In many ways Katara knew becoming a fur warmer was a lofty aspiration. It was an unspoken truth that there were whores at the South Pole; women whose huts were maintained by men who pretended not to know them and were fed only because their people’s sense of community would not let them go hungry. Whores existed on the border of social pariah and formal shunning. Katara knew of at least two whose bodies had been found during separate hunting seasons. There had been no one to mark their passing or even notice their disappearance.
But sometimes Zuko didn’t force her …sometimes after kissing, touching and using his mouth he’d just hold her.
Those instances were the most difficult to deal with. Zuko often said that he wished their relationship was consensual because he cared for her did not want to see her hurting. He wished she would stop fighting because he didn’t want to hurt her. Laying in his arms after being kissed and licked in such an intimate matter knowing he’d emptied himself in his hand or against the sheets while doing so made her more inclined to believe his lies had a bit of truth in them.
She knew they were lies. Gran-Gran had warned her of the sweet words of seducers but she never imagined a day would come when found herself in danger of wanting to believe them.
Her desire to believe his lies grew stronger each time he allowed her to spend real time with Aang and Sokka. Aang who had lost everyone he loved was locked alone in a dark room with little to no human contact. Admiral Chu-hua had ordered that the Avatar remain heavily chained in solitary confinement except for his weekly bath but Prince Zuko could trump her orders. It was rare but he would remove enough chains for Aang to make the short journey to Sokka’s cage so she could talk to both of them. Those precious times he would hang on to both of them so tightly it left bruises.
If she believed his lies it could be done on her own authority. Aang would have more freedom and Sokka would not be tortured.
She was troubled and relieved to learn Mu had found a method that left Sokka relatively healthy if not literally smelling like the animal shit he was now in charge of shoveling. Even Admiral Chu-hua seemed to approve of this new role. The pies from a ten ton bison were very large and unpleasant. The cleaning rotation left the junior members of her crew disgruntled. All of them had attainted status as officers and would be much higher in the chain of command had they not been among the elite chosen for duty on the Fire Lord’s personal vessel. Using Sokka allowed them to perform other duties that were less demeaning to one of their actual rank.
It also made them less inclined to hurt him. Or their reluctance to harm him could have been because they were unable to withstand his stench. His daily shoveling duties increased his bath allowance to twice a week.
If Katara were to believe his lies she would not have to worry about Sokka’s inadequate hygiene causing disease and illness.
During one of their longer visits Sokka had joked that maybe he would have skipped the water as well as the soap when he was washing if he had known Katara and Aang would be so clingy. Zuko actually laughed when he said that. He revealed he’d done the same thing when he was eight to drive away Azula and her friends. It worked for three days. When his mother realized what she was doing she promptly scrubbed him and forced to spend the afternoon playing with them.
After that day began to Zuko tell her more stories about his mother and Lu Ten, Taiga the cook who’d made sandwiches for them, and other servants who had been kind to him. He rarely spoke of his grandfather, Ozai or Azula. She had seen enough of how his father and sister treated him to understand. She couldn’t imagine growing up questioning the love of her family, being the constant butt of their jokes and wondering if she truly had a place among them.
With each passing day Zuko revealed more of himself and Katara began to see the person hiding inside the monster.
If they weren’t swapping stories about their childhood Zuko would lay beside her on one of the loungers and tell her of his travels during his banishment. It was an activity she hated as it made her forget the person revealing such misery and telling such magnificent tales was the same one who held her down each night and raped her.
It bothered her that she was willing to make the distinction.
During one of their afternoon chats Zuko revealed how he ended up in her village.
Zuko had gone to the Foggy Swamp chasing rumors of a powerful sage hiding in a mystical environment. Initially he had thought Huu was the Avatar reasoning only one spiritually enlightened would go naked except for leaf hats and loin coverings. Then he met Due, then he met Tho, and then Uncle Iroh had met the three of them. The Dragon of West, also a spiritually enlightened individual, decided he rather liked the fashion. Clothes made the man and Iroh believed those screamed to the world of a man’s high self-esteem and great confidence to all who saw him wearing that particular style.
Everyone aboard the Albatross was forced to try on the plant based garments at Iroh’s insistence. But like his uncle, two others became addicted to the freedom if not the fashion statement made by Foggy Swamp garments. Zuko had set a course for the South Pole hoping the cold weather would force Uncle Iroh and the other two half-naked geezers to put on proper clothing. Stumbling upon the Avatar was karma.
`The spirits owed him after seeing that much of his uncle, his ship’s engineer and Fan on a daily basis.
Katara cried, slapped his chest and kicked him as she laughed after Zuko’s expression made her realize he was included in everyone. She would have fallen off the lounger if his arms had not snaked themselves around her and prevented her from taking a tumble. It was warm that day. The tropical breeze easily caught and lifted the fabric of Zuko’s thin shirt giving her teasing glimpses of the muscular chest it was doing a poor job of hiding. His legs, long and lean, lay beside hers and she briefly imagined how he would look dressed in a banana leaf.
The image wasn’t nearly as disturbing as it should have been.