Though night had fallen the air was balmy, warm and moist on Katara's sweat-cooled skin. The palace gardens were well lit at this hour; in a place filled with firebenders it is rare to find oneself in darkness.
Katara twisted smoothly, shifting her weight from her right foot to her left as she twirled the water, raising it into the air. Eyes closed in concentration she manipulated it further, spreading and pulling the liquid so it hung like a sheet above the courtyard, enclosing the space. Spirits, this was just what she needed: a blessed relief of tension after a long, stressful day of Mai scowling at her and officials ignoring her and fruitless attempts to convince Sokka that there was really no reason for him to hang around the Fire Nation. Katara smiled, moving fluidly- and then without warning she was in the air and the water had collapsed, soaking her thoroughly in the process. Except, no, she wasn't in the air, she was simply not on the ground. Actually, she realized dizzily, bouncing rather uncomfortably, she was slung over someone's shoulder. With this realization her senses returned and without a moment to spare she kneed her captor squarely in his solar plexus.
He grunted quite satisfactorily, a moment before the pair tumbled to the ground and Katara found herself pinned down by an equally soaked and quite irate Zuko, who was grumbling something to the effect of "-never mentioned anything like this-"
Furious (and incredibly confused) Katara struggled to roll over and reverse their positions; a knee to his stomach was very effective and the waterbender took advantage of his pain to straddle the Fire Lord. Bizarrely, said Fire Lord wasn't struggling, but Katara hardly cared.
"What," she hissed, "are you doing?" He didn't respond; she clenched her knees tightly around his torso, eliciting a soft groan. "Are you insane?"
"I was capturing you," Zuko explained- not that that explained anything- sounding surprisingly lucid, considering the fall he had taken. Not to mention the multiple blows to his person.
"Capturing me? Zuko! We're allies!" she seethed at him, stabbing her finger into his chest with each word (he winced; she ignored it.) "And friends, too-" He didn't allow her the courtesy of finishing her sentence, which she found almost as annoying as his "capturing" her in the first place.
"I read this book-" he began, seemingly desperate to explain...and then he clammed up completely, leaving things utterly unexplained.
"You read a book?" Katara repeated incredulously. "So you decided to kidnap me?"
"I wasn't kidnapping you!" he defended himself, again asserting "I was capturing you." Katara didn't particularly care about the distinction, to be perfectly honest.
"I still don't understand why you felt it was necessary to kidnap me!" This time he didn't bother to correct her choice of words, instead speaking almost too quickly for her to follow.
"The book- there was a pirate and he-" there was a bit she missed completely, garbled amongst his lisp and rough voice and too-quick tongue "-and she fell in love with him and-" Eyes wide Zuko stopped speaking suddenly and Katara resisted the urge to smirk, having bent his saliva to freeze his lips together.
"Hush," she told him, putting a finger on his lips before melting the ice; fortunately for him, he kept quiet, a peculiar look on his face suggesting frozen saliva was not a pleasant experience.
Katara began slowly. "So let me get this straight." Raising her eyebrows, the waterbender locked her blue eyes with his gold ones. "You read a book. About a pirate." Zuko nodded. "Who, I assume, captured a girl, who then fell in love with him."
"I thought it was a good idea!" the pale young man burst out- Katara promptly froze his lips together again.
"You are such an idiot sometimes," she informed him after a moment, shaking her head in disapproval. Zuko closed his eyes in resignation and a flicker of a smirk crossed the girl's face. "Kidnapping me isn't going to make me fall in love with you, Zuko." With that she kissed him, melting the ice as she did so.
"I already did," Katara whispered in his ear, and with that Zuko rolled over, and she found herself pinned again; this time she didn't mind in the least.