Katara hates the sun. Normally, she's fine with it - unless they're fighting firebenders because then they're pretty difficult to get away from in the daytime - but now… She turns her face and buries it between her arms as she lies on her stomach, smothering herself in darkness.
Zuko, on the other hand, is already rolling up his bed. She can even hear him snack on an apple or something. Breakfast. Her stomach rumbles but she's not moving because her head hurts.
The night was far too much. And now she just wants to catch up on her sleep.
"Get up." The firebender says. She hears him rummaging around in the backpack but is simply too lazy to see what he's doing. "Unless you want to stay here and waste away the day, I suggest we get a move on."
"No." She protests. "I'm not moving."
She misses the ships. They never woke up so early then. Waterbenders - those who rise with the moon - shouldn't have to abide by the same times as firebenders.
Katara would insist on traveling at night because then she's stronger. But she can't see very well in the dark and if Zuko does attack her, he'll probably do it at night. Besides, if a group of Fire patrols stumble upon them when they're sleeping, she'll be stronger. She'll need that if she faces a group.
Zuko sighs and she thinks he has dropped the pack back down on the ground. "One morning you can't wait to get moving and now you don't want to move at all," he mutters.
Katara doesn't even bother with a response. She just shifts her head into a more comfortable position and sighs.
"Be quiet. I can't sleep with you sulking."
Somewhere, a stick hits a tree and she knows that he threw it.
After sitting up and holding back tears for several hours, Katara finally managed to doze off just an hour or two before dawn. She didn't dream that time - at least, nothing that she can remember and that's just fine because she'd rather forget about the red and the yellow and the blood.
The ground hurts where it pushes up against her shoulders but she's so tired that she doesn't even care. The waterbender spent more than half of the night staring up at the moon wondering if someone from her family was doing the same.
Silly, she knows. But it made her feel better and connected to the people that she really wanted.
"We shouldn't stay here." Zuko keeps complaining under his breath, loud enough that she can hear it. She rolls her eyes and keeps ignoring him.
Katara falls back asleep for what feels like scant minutes before someone is shaking her awake. Her arm that isn't tucked underneath her head starts flailing. "Sokka, stop," she hisses and turns her head into the crook of her arm to block out the light.
Her hand slaps against something hard and she pushes against him.
"I know you're not fond of this call-each-other-by-names thing but that doesn't mean you can call me someone else's," the firebender huffs. Katara responds with groan. "Come on, it's almost noon. I've let you sleep for long enough."
Oh. Right. Firebender, Earth Kingdom. Forest. Hard ground, not swaying ship or the chill of ice.
"No you didn't," she protests gruffly, but she's rolling over onto her back with her eyes closed, fighting against the haze of sleepiness. She finally does get around to open her eyes, only to squeeze them shut instantly against the sun. "I don't know how you firebenders can stand the sun."
He chuckles, already moving away from her. "I feel the same way about your ice-cold water."
Katara grumbles and complains until she's standing up and rolling her bedroll up - but even then she's trying to blink her eyes clear of grogginess. Her stomach rumbles - embarrassingly loud - and Zuko smirks before tossing her an apple.
"Thanks," she mutters. That was...nice. She refuses to think about it anymore as she packs up all of her stuff and pulls the bag over her shoulders. Katara is still eating when they break away from the camp.
"We've wasted too much time." The firebender says, eyes flickering up to catch where the sun is in the sky.
"Didn't know you were so eager to get to the Water Tribe." Suspicion is in her voice and her eyes are narrowed. She tosses the apple core to the side.
"I-I'm not." He flubbers. "But I just thought that…"
Katara stops. Her arms cross over her chest and she glares at him. He's slow to turn around, hesitant. "Why are you so eager to leave camp?"
"We're in the middle of an Earth Kingdom forest where there are tons of slavers and poachers roaming around. Forgive me if I'm a little hesitant to stay in one place for a long time."
She doesn't change the glare.
"After seeing your earthbender friend get caught up in that, you want to see it again? Fine, be my guest, but I, for one, don't." He turns back around and walks away.
She works at her jaw for a bit, staring at his back as he gets further and further away. Sure enough, he turns to see her still standing at the same place and she swears he slows down a bit.
It shouldn't make her smile, but it does.
He's right, she supposes. There are a lot of...unpleasant people in the Earth Kingdom. A lot of stuff goes on in the jungles that she doesn't really know all about herself. She knew there were slavers - but that can't be the worst kinds.
The waterbender marches after him. She's a bit steadier on her feet than she was before. She hasn't tripped nearly as much.
She reaches out for the river to make sure that they're on the right path. It's there - maybe a fourth of a mile off so they haven't strayed too far. When will they get to the Northern curve?
Zuko slows down just enough that she's able to catch up with him easily.
"You know I have all the supplies right," she can't help but tease. How far did he think he was going to go without the bedrolls, food and knives? Speaking of supplies - she really needs to start working on that fur blanket. While she may be from the Tribes, she still gets cold. And she doesn't exactly know how well firebenders adapt to chill.
He quirks a brow. "Why do you think I slowed down? It certainly wasn't for you."
For a moment, she's actually a little offended by that. But then she remembers that the firebender is still a firebender and her enemy - and she hates him - and people don't get offended by statements made by people they hate. So, she squelches that down as fast as she can.
It's really hard to hate the only person she's had contact with in several days. Really hard.
If it was Sokka or Sangok, she probably would hate them by now. So why is she having to remind herself over and over that she's supposed to hate Zuko?
She never should have made him call her by her name. Even if everytime he said 'waterbender' it made her think of red slickness.
They walk a few miles and Katara's stomach starts grumbling embarrassingly loud so they stop.
She shouldn't - because as she keeps telling herself, Zuko is her enemy and people shouldn't, don't care what their enemies think or feel - but she's...embarrassed? No. Ashamed? Maybe. Mortified? Yes. That's it.
She's mortified over what happened the night before.
It was just a nightmare - a super realistic one, but a nightmare only - and even if it felt real it wasn't. She freaked out, really freaked out, and him of all people had to try to calm her down.
And...she paid him back by trying to get the upperhand by turning it back in his face. Katara talked about his father. Used words like tyrant and oppressor and while she really believed what she said was true, Zuko had been the one who calmed her down.
Kind of. He managed to get her to stop from scraping the skin off her hands by pinning her to the ground but it still counts… right?
And she's been thinking about that. Once she managed to wake up and remember what all happened the night before, her cheeks were warm and it wasn't all from the atrocious, sweltering heat of the jungle.
The waterbender really tries to just forget about it. Zuko seems to be doing that. He hasn't mentioned a thing about it except for the whole name instance. He even let her sleep in, for Spirit's sake!
It's...nice. Nice is dangerous. Nice will get her nothing but trouble.
But it's not make her suspicious. There isn't anything he can gain from that except for her softness. And Katara is too hardened for one night to start chipping away at her stones. Surely he saw that when she charged right back at him and taunted him about Ozai.
All of this is just confusing and weird and she doesn't know what to do or think or feel and it's just...ugh. Sokka. She needs Sokka. He'd know what she - they - should do.
She wipes at the sweat on her brow and huffs. Things would be simpler if she left him on that boat.
But she can't really forget about it all. She just can't. She's been thinking about it all morning and it's about to drive her insane. She needs to -
"Thanks," she blurts out. Zuko startles, the backpack slipping from his fingertips onto the ground and he jumps at the sound but she keeps looking at him. At his ambers. "For, um, last night… Thanks."
He reddens. Blushing? Interesting. "Oh, um...you're welcome, I guess? I was just trying to - to get some sleep. You were...You were pretty loud."
She can't keep looking at his ambers. So she looks at the log that he sits on. "Yeah. I suppose I was." A pause. An awkward one at that. "Can we - Can we just try to...forget that?"
A pause longer than the one before it stretches between him.
"Are you okay?"
She looks up. The question - it surprises her. "What?"
"I saw how you looked that night." He swallows. "And I heard you last night. Are you...Do you want to...talk about it?"
Katara blinks. "No. I just want you and I to forget about it."
She stands up swiftly and starts marching into the forest. Zuko scrambles to grab the bag and she hears him chase after her. The firebender is back at her side in an instant.
"You can't just forget about stuff like that. It was your first kill wasn't it?" She looks at him sharply. "I mean a kill like that. Like a nonbender. Up close, where you can see their eyes."
Katara shrugs. Hopefully that will be more than enough answer for him.
It is. "It's different, isn't it?" He's softer this time. "To be to close and to watch the light leave them. Knowing that you're the last person they see - the last sensation they feel is pain - and it… kills a part of you too. Almost...It almost makes you reconsider everything."
"They deserved it," she replies stiffly. He's right though. He's explaining everything that she's felt and she doesn't like that. They shouldn't have anything in common. They don't. They already shared names - they can't share anything else.
"Doesn't matter, does it?"
"What would you know? The only thing you know is your fire."
Zuko blinks down at her. She almost trips over a stone. "Oh, I know exactly how you felt when you stabbed Ji. It feels sick and wet and slick but...it feels kind of good. Like some part deep down inside of you likes it even though the rest of you hates it."
She turns her head away.
"It's not right to take another's life."
"Yet we do it all the time," she mutters.
"Enemy casualties are expected in war." That damned sentence - it bothers her. So much. She's even the one who said it first, spitting it in his face nastily and cruelly like her hands were as white as her snow. But they're not. They're stained with red.
Red. Just like his fire.
Katara drags in a shaky breath. She doesn't like this conversation. "Doesn't make it any better."
"No." He shakes his head. "No it doesn't. I think that's what's wrong with all of us. We benders - we're so detached from killing that… taking human lives, it's almost like we're not doing it when we're bending."
"Strange words coming from a firebending Prince," she mumbles and kicks a branch out of the way.
"It's true though, in a way. Maybe if we didn't have bending, we wouldn't have war."
"Bending isn't the reason for this war. This war is about freedom. Liberation. The ability to live in your culture without deadly interference. Bending only plays a small role in that."
Zuko thinks for a moment. "But if we didn't have bending, we wouldn't have so many deaths. And we'd appreciate human life so much more if we had to be up close to witness it, to see and fully grasp what we're doing -"
"We'd find some other tool besides bending," she interrupts. "All of the Southern Warriors are nonbenders. They can't defend using water, so they use spears and shields and staffs. Weapons used for killing animals to kill humans. Not having bending doesn't stop them. I doubt it would stop anyone else."
He frowns, shoulders sagging. "Yeah...I guess you're...right."
"Maybe it's a good thing that we kill with bending." Katara says abruptly. "I don't know how I would feel if this entire war was fought with...that kind of killing."
There's a long pause. Katara can only imagine a world where the rivers are red and the world is dead because of the sheer butchery involved in fighting with weapons other than bending.
Fire is bad. She hates fire and firebending and the heat and pain. But she'd take that over knives and spears and swords any day.
"And your people are the ones who impose strict bending laws on others while your children practice their arts freely. It's wrong - bending, it's a deep part of someone. Haven't you ever thought of that? How your laws - the ones that you enforce and support - they...they kill a piece of a person."
"Of course I have," he scoffs and looks up. "I never claimed to be a complete supporter of my father or his father before him. I-I know some things are wrong. I know that things should be different."
"Then why don't you speak up? You're the Prince! Surely your word must count for something."
Zuko sighs. "I did," he mutters so quietly that she almost doesn't hear him. When she realizes what he said, she pauses mid-step before continuing and looking up at him. "I did speak up. But we're nothing but pawns now. If you don't play the role... you get hurt."
His eyes flicker over to her for a moment and she breathes in sharply - his scar, he's talking about his scar.
"I spoke out of turn at a war meeting. They wanted to use an entire squadron as a distraction for a bigger assault on Omashu. The troops would have had no chance. And I tried to explain a different route - a better way that we could have taken the city without sacrifices like that. But my father didn't like that. He didn't like that I spoke out against a plan that he devised and that generals actually agreed with me."
Silence. His - His father gave him that scar?
Apparently, she has said the words out loud. His lips twist in a cruel mockery of a smile. "Yeah. Yeah he did. Next thing I knew, I was being shipped off on a quest that would only end in death or exile. I could come back to my home for brief periods of time to stock up, but I could never stay. Not until I brought him the Avatar."
"I'm sorry," she says, nothing but truth. Zuko glances over at her - the false smile gone - and he nods. Like he's accepted her apology. She hopes that she sees she truly is sorry for what happened to him. She may hate him but no one - no one, not even him - deserves to be treated by their father, or anyone, in that way.
They fall back into quietness. A half-mile passes.
"Why did you stop me last night?" She asks, a whisper. The quiet is too comfortable and she just needs to know the answer to that question. It's burning her. She needs to know.
"I thought you wanted us to forget about that."
"I do. But I still want to know why you stopped. You could have taken advantage - knocked me out and got away or something. Why didn't you?"
He chuckles. "As if I would have gotten far without you." Warmth floods her cheeks. It's pleasant but unpleasant at the same time. "I mean, I don't know how to survive outside of a palace...And barely even there."
"You sell yourself so short." She shakes her head. The words come out before she can think them through and her cheeks burn - Zuko looks at her sharply like he's just as surprised. "I mean, you survived this long in the Palace and...and out here so you must be doing something right."
Katara bites on her lip.
"Well," he clears his throat, "maybe so. But I couldn't last more than a few days out here. If I was going to take advantage over your weakness, not only would I do it closer to a place where I know there is a Fire camp, but I would also make sure that you didn't seem completely out of it."
"I was that bad, huh?"
"You were clawing the skin off of your hands. I'd say you were pretty bad. There's also the whole...bloodbending thing. I'd rather not experience that again when you're in that...frame of mind."
She feels the heat drain away from her cheeks and she's cold again. Ice. "Oh...yeah. I can, um, understand that. I...wouldn't have done that…"
Bloodbending him hadn't even crossed her mind at the time. That, and it was the last day of the Full Moon weakness. She wouldn't have been able to do it even if she tried. But Zuko doesn't - and doesn't need to - know that.
Katara doesn't look at Zuko to see his reaction. She wants to...but she doesn't.
A pause. "Good to know."
The tension in her shoulders release. She hadn't realized they had been stiff.
"I stopped you last night because you looked really scared. Angry - murderous even - but panicked." She does look at him now. "It was far different than how you looked on the night that it happened. It was like everything finally hit you at once. I couldn't let you freak out like that and injure yourself...Or me."
"But we're enemies, Zuko. Why - why would you even care?"
"You annoy the hell out of me. And most of the time, I'm trying not to kill you and I'm sure you feel the same. But just because we're enemies doesn't mean that you're not a human being." He shrugs his shoulders. "And you're the one who's keeping me alive right now. Having you die or go mad from a panic attack wouldn't exactly be the best thing."
"I do hate you, you know. I hate you and your Fire Nation."
"And I hate you and your rebels. But that didn't stop me from helping you last night."
"This doesn't change anything."
"Yes it does." Zuko's eyes level with her. "It changes everything. When you start looking at your enemy as the sole reason you're living and as a real person, it makes you stop from doing things."
Katara swallows. It's thick in her mouth and her tongue is dry. "You're still my prisoner."
"You're still my captor."
"I'm still taking you to the Northern Tribe."
"I wouldn't expect anything less."
"I thought you were supposed to cruel. Cruel and mean - just like Zhao and Ozai and every other firebender I've met in my life." Not that she's really talked to any of them but still.
He quirks a brow. "Sorry to disappoint. You were supposed to be barbaric and savage. I wake up every day expecting to be encased in a block of ice."
"And I wake up wondering why you haven't burned me."
Zuko laughs - he laughs - and she doesn't feel like clawing her ears off. In fact, it almost makes her want to laugh because this whole situation is so...screwed up that she feels it's the only thing she can do to keep from crying out in frustration.
"I guess -"
She's cut off by the sounds of dozens of different heartbeats. Whirling around, she quickly drops into a defensive position, scanning the forest because those beats are too loud and too steady to be friendly.
A high arc of fire slashes through the trees and Katara barely has time to suck the water out of her waterskin and slice the fire down the middle.
Firebenders. Lots of them.
"You knew?" She snarls at Zuko - his mouth is gaped open and he hasn't even raised his hands and she's so furious because it looks like they've - she's - walked right into a trap that he must have known about -
Before he can answer, a sickening crackle makes her spin around to block multiple tiny fire darts. They're fast - strong and hot and she can't concentrate on their heartbeats to know where they are so she keeps having to circle around. She can't see them and she doesn't know who's she's putting her back to -
- Zuko.
Katara leaps at his back, fisting her hand against the front of his tunic as she kicks the backs of his knees. He's down, her forearm pressing his head against her stomach as she holds him to her with her arm against his neck. "Make one move and I will pull every last drop of blood out of your body," she hisses against his ear, tightening her hold to get the message through.
The water forms a large icy blade and she holds it to his cheek.
"I'll kill him - I swear to the Spirits, I will," she growls to the trees. Where are they?
"Like we care what happens to a boy?" Someone chuckles. But there's no fire coming her way.
Katara puts as much ice as she can into her stare as she faces the direction where the voice came from - somewhere to her left. "This is no mere boy." The hand around his throat moves to his hair and she shoves it back, baring his scar to them. "He's your Prince. Show yourself!"
She's aware enough to know that Zuko's heart is racing. Pounding. Scared? She sneers and presses the frozen blade against his cheek more. Her fingers around his neck twist and she grips hold of his blood - just enough for her to be sure that he isn't going to try to bend his way out of grasp.
The forest ruffles - trees and branches and bushes move and she spins around as best she can to keep them all in sight - there's so many and she realizes it.
She's being herded.
A dozen or so firebenders - soldiers - circle her in and she picks out the commander easily. There's gold on his uniform at the shoulders.
His amber eyes - fire, heated, amused - wash over her and Zuko on his knees. The corner of his lips lift. "So you're the girl that Zhao had...problems with."
Beneath her, Zuko starts to move and she snaps her forearm against his neck again. She stifles the grunt when his skull digs into her stomach. "I am. And I'll cause a lot more problems for you if you don't let me - us - go."
"How sweet." He's smiles. No warmth. "It's endearing how you think you can get us to let you go. Such a high priority prisoner. Zhao was insistent in his announcement to let him know when you were found. I can't exactly let you go."
"What if I make you?"
His eyes shift behind her and before she can spin around to defend herself, fiery hot hands are groping her shoulders, hauling her away from the Prince and gripping the wrist that holds the blade.
They're too warm - she bites the inside of her cheek because she is not going to scream -
The ice blade evaporates when one of the men slices through it with a fire bolt so heated that she feels it on her face and arm. Then those hands grab both of her wrists and haul them against the small of her back.
Katara fights back - digging her shoulders into the man behind her and she stomps down on the boots of those beside her - snarling, vicious and so cold that they must be uncomfortable holding her - because she won't be any one's prisoner again - especially not the Fire Nation's. She worked so hard to get out of that and it won't -
- The commander's flaming hand grips her chin and she screams as the flames lick at her cheeks and mouth and lips and she yanks herself back - burning.
"You will stop your struggling and you will come quietly." Fire disappears but his hand is still too hot as he forces her chin up. The air smells of burnt flesh. She feels charred. "Zhao wants you alive but he didn't say the kind of state you had to be in."
She snarls, a polar lion's grimace and fearsome teeth showing.
Katara coils her fingers - they've seen nothing - and even though she can feel the tug of healing at her face and neck, she reaches to the nearest person - the soldier holding her hands - and twists.
His blood - hot, coursing but cooler than Zuko's - responds easily and he forcibly lets go of her wrists. She quickly wrenches up her knee, driving the bone up into the man's groin and snaps her arms forward to shove him away.
She doesn't hold on to the man's blood longer than she has to - her fingers are already pulling at the water left in the skin and from a few plants nearby. Katara spins, slicing the water at the man that held her down and moving just in time to miss the searing fire of another.
There's so many of them - there's not enough water - she needs to -
- There, a clearing. There's a gap in their formation and she can make it if she just keeps going - Katara flinches away from another fireball and the commander is trying to sputter, red-faced and humiliated with fury in his eyes and he's screaming commands but she can't hear them -
She won't be a prisoner - Katara turns her back to the gap and starts backing away into it as the firebenders are throwing more and more heat at her and she's desperately trying to fend them off with what little water she has - there's so many attacks that she can't draw any water from around for a second.
She's almost to the edge of the gap and she's so close to being able to disappear - she knows how to blend in, knows how to climb and she thinks that she can make if she can just -
Katara can't bring the water around to block a fire stream coming from her right and her left and she drops to the ground, eyes wide as her tunic is burning at her side and she whips the water around to douse that because it hurts.
It's enough of a distraction for one of the soldiers to pounce. She gasps as her head hits the ground and she's tossed over onto her stomach. She can't kick or punch or do anything but send her elbows flying back into the man's chest but he shifts his weight. Katara coughs, breath mangled as she's buried into the grass and dirt with heaviness holding her down.
This time, they slap manacles around her wrists and her palms are pressed together - proper restraints for a bender - before they haul her back up onto her feet.
There's wildness in her eyes and in her hair and she hates them. Oh, how she hates them.
It's in her eyes, matching the commander's fury as he manages to rise. He's still red-faced. Humiliated. Just like her.
Katara doesn't flinch or shy away when he stalks closer to her. The snarl on his lips is fearsome enough to rival Zhao's, but it doesn't make her spine shake and shiver like his did. It just makes her angry.
He slaps her. Heated palm against icy skin.
She plans a special death for him: a frozen heart that will beat and replace all of his fire with ice so he dies chilled and numb to everything but the cold.
"You better watch it from now on," he hisses. "You're going to be waiting in our camp for a while so you shouldn't cause more trouble than you're worth. It's a lot more difficult to maintain order in a camp than it is on a ship."
But he's not saying it to point out a weakness - the smile that replaces the snarl shows her that the words were a warning. A threat. Something in the pit of her stomach tightens and she narrows her eyes. Threats. They must not know what happened to the two soldiers who tried to do that to her on the ship.
He lifts a hand to her neck, tilting it up so that it's completely exposed to him. "Interesting." He must be talking about the healing burns. She could feel the healing still tugging at her. It's not completely healed yet but it will be soon.
The commander turns away from her and she lowers her head back so that she can glare around him to where Zuko stands. He's stiff, not meeting her eyes as he works to soothe over the front of his wrinkled, dirty tunic.
"Prince," the commander says, "the Fire Lord will be pleased to know that you have been found."
"Have I been declared missing?"
"Zhao presumed you dead. He sent word that the waterbender killed you in a fit of extreme violence. You know how vicious and savage those tribespeople can be." The commander looks over his shoulder at her. He's smiling, tight and she glowers.
The icy hackles on her back rise. If she wasn't restrained, she would -
"Yes, I'm aware." The ice in Zuko's voice could rival her own. Katara switches from the commander's to the Prince. He's still not looking at her - traitor.
She shouldn't feel betrayed but she does. He had to know that they were walking right to a Fire Camp and yet he didn't say anything. In fact, he had been damned pleasant this morning -
- And it all makes sense now.
It was a facade.
And for some reason, that hurts more than when the commander burned her neck. Traitor. Deceiver! She should have known better than to trust a firebender. Look where niceties had gotten her: back in the hands of more firebenders, soon to be handed over to Zhao if she didn't break out.
"Our camp isn't too far from here, as I'm sure you know." The commander gestures to the right. And that's it. There's all the proof she needs to know that Zuko walked her straight into a trap. He planned this. The damned firebender planned it all.
A soldier picks up the backpack that had slid off her shoulders at some point. The soldier behind her shoves her forward - she stumbles but then she's yanked back into the man's burly chest. She makes sure to stomp on his foot with all of her might just for that. In retaliation, one of his hands leaves the grip on her arm to yank at her hair. He keeps it there as the two follow after the Prince and the commander.
Katara isn't so focused to making sure that she doesn't trip over the forest floor to not notice that Zuko glances behind at her a few times. She meets his eyes at random intervals - they're blank and hers are cold.
Traitor.
The trip to the fire camp isn't long in distance but it feels longer with the soldier yanking and pulling at her hair when she doesn't adjust to the random speeds he sets or when she loses her footing. Her head hurts, her scalp aches, and her elbows dig uncomfortably in her sides and back.
It's all Zuko's fault. She hates him most of all. Hates. There's a coldness gripping at her heart that burns when she scowls at his back.
"Take the waterbender to one of the cells. Chain her up and make sure that her hands remain bound. You saw what she did to those plants." The commander instructs.
Katara shoots icy daggers into Zuko's back one last time before she's hauled away by her hair with a hiss on her lips.
They will all pay. These firebender will answer to her ice and her water before this is over. And this time, Lee won't be there to stop her.
She'll save Zuko for last.