Zutara Week 2021/ Zutara Smut Week 2021

Day One: Hair

Katara always loved when Zuko rested his head in her lap and let her run her fingers through his glorious mane. His hair was dark and shiny like onyx and soft as the finest silk thread.  She preferred when he let it flow loose instead of pulling it back into his traditional phoenix plume topknot.
Zuko looked so boyish and vulnerable when drifting off to sleep.
The world saw Zuko as a ruthless brute, an unstoppable warrior in his epaulets and helmet, a human inferno that left nothing but ashes in his wake. Katara would have gone on seeing him that way if he hadn't shown her his unarmoured self: a restless boy struggling against the constraints and expectations forced on him who expired in her lap like a child exhausted after a tantrum.
The name Katara would go down in history as a byword for female faithlessness and treachery. A synonym for temptress, man-eater, and prostitute. Katara scoffed at these accusations. Zuko was the first and only man she'd ever been with, and how could she, a simple girl who eeked out a meager living as a silk weaver, resist a handsome and powerful prince and the luxurious life he offered. When she looked into his smoldering ember eyes, she knew he would be her downfall. Katara hadn't seen much of her family since she'd become an "ashmaker's whore" as her brother Sokka put it. Only her Gran-Gran, who also knew all too well that a woman has few options in this world, kept in touch.
And how could Katara, a Water Tribe refugee whose father, brother, and grandmother risked deportation, say no to the Dai Lee of Ba Sing Se and their all-power master Long Feng? Especially when they offered her 1100 silver coins each: more money than she and her family could hope to see in a lifetime.
It all began innocently enough—a harmless bedroom game.
"My Lord," Katara said one evening when Zuko was resting his head in her lap. "No one matches your prowess at fire bending, but even a god or spirit can be vulnerable. You must have at least one weakness. Tell me what it is so I can subdue you."
Zuko tossed his head in the direction of Katara's loom, which stood in the opposite corner of the bedroom. "Raw silk. Tie my wrists with six strands of it, and I'll be unable to bend." He smirked and offered Katara his wrists, probably thinking she was trying to initiate another lovers' romp.
Katara rose from the bed to get six strands of raw silk from the workbasket by her loom. She wrapped them around Zuko's wrist and tied them tight enough to cut off his circulation. Maybe it also stopped the flow of his chi and would keep him from being able to bend?
"Zuko, the Dai Lee are upon us," Katara shrieked as if their enemies had surrounded them.
Zuko's hands ignited, and the silk threads melted away like ice. Katara clapped like a child who'd been amazed by a magic trick.
"I knew My Lord couldn't be restrained by mere silk." Yes, she was a fool for even considering something so ridiculous. "Surely, it would take something much stronger."
Yawning contentedly, Zuko settled back into her lap. "Try seven new ropes woven from swamp reeds or eight braided leather cords."
Katara helped Zuko comb out his glorious hair and pull it back into a phoenix plume the following morning. She kissed him goodbye then went to the market to buy seven new ropes woven from swamp reeds and eight braided leather cords.
"Zuko says that these are his weaknesses," she told Long Feng when she dropped by the Dai Lee's headquarters to tell him what she'd learned.
Long Feng stroked his wispy beard and mustache. "Good work, Lady Katara. Will I be paying you and your lord a visit this evening?"
"If we're receiving visitors, I'll place an oil lamp in our bedroom window facing the street."
Katara tried again that night with the reed ropes and leather cords, but they were no more effective than the silk threads. Zuko burnt himself free of these restraints as if they were nothing.
"You no longer love me." Crocodile tears ran down Katara's cheeks. "If you did, you wouldn't keep things from me."
Zuko dried her eyes with her sleeve. "What am I keeping from you?"
"I gave up everything for you: my virtue, my family, and my reputation. And yet, you won't confide in me."
If Katara's mother and grandmother had taught her anything, it was that a woman's tears and guilt were enough to break any man.
"Fine, my love." Zuko took Katara into his arms. "I'll tell you everything." He held her close and whispered the secret into her ear.
The phoenix plume topknot is a sacred symbol worn by elite fire benders who vow never to cut their hair. As long as they wear their phoenix plume, the god, Agni, will bless them with the gift of fire bending.
"If I cut my hair, then I'm completely helpless."
Zuko rested his head in Katara's lap, as he did countless times before. Then, she took a pair of sheers from her workbasket and cut off his phoenix plume with a single stroke at the root. The silky onyx hair slipped through her fingers.
Katara pushed Zuko's shorn head from her lap and went to put a lit oil lamp in the window.