Flying
South To Winter
dis.claimed.
It was an accident, he protests, an accident.
(His opportunist nature invalidates his denials when he orders her taken aboard.)
The crew can only meet his eyes with disgust now. There was no honor in this, their expressions read, with that girl lying beneath their deck—cold and in the cold, like that mattered, but it did, somehow. Their stomachs could not quite settle enough to enjoy their meals, of late.
(Zuko does not eat at all, but, then, neither does she.)
They (he) cut off her hair. She remains as she was when the braid and bun are removed; unresisting. He murmurs an apology, examines her face, desperately seeks acceptance in this: the hair loops that now frame her face unattached from behind, tan skin that is smooth, at ease, the burn on her right cheek (mild, oddly unlike the others that they don't treat either).
(Her eyes are closed.)
He sends her braid, accompanied by a short note, off with a messenger. It'll take a long time to reach the Avatar, he knows, and wishes that it would arrive just a little later than that. The message: "Come get her." The implied: "Because we won't let her go to you."
(Nothing is said or unsaid about the truth.)
She never gives them any trouble. Never moves an inch from her rest against the wall. Gives them no reason to place a guard by her cell. He does so anyway, if only in hope that she'll then give them the reason (he) they need(s).
(Give me reason again. Because any honor he claims through this is a sham.)
Zuko looks at her, once, before… Before. And wonders if he'll be able to say goodbye when it comes time to.
(If you can, if you love, let it go. Let go.)
He does not know of water tribe traditions, only of his own. So it is fire that will take Katara, and finish the work previously started by burns that trace horrific paths over her body.
(An accident, but, still, he'll finish what he started.)
The embers carry themselves away on the wind as he looks on, wishing he could join them.
It should be granted when the Avatar arrived (never soon enough), just a little too late to do anything but. Zuko can wait.