A/N: another fic. Yes I'm sorry for not staying put. Piraty/Zutaraiee/Baiting story. Couldn't help myself. Please don't get too confused.


Chapter one: Not All is as it Appears.

"Tell me where the Avatar is, Water peasant!" Ordered Zuko for the fifth or sixth time in a row. He was getting sick of this girls ignorance. He had tried everything; bribery, niceness, orders, threats. Everything! There were also the pirate constant demands that the girl was simply given to them. Growing bored, Zuko scowled at the peasant tied to the tree and snarled. "Fine, you can go off with the pirates." Her blue eyes snapped wider at him, then over to the pirates, then back at him.

"No!" she gasped as the pirates crept forward with a lustful glint in their eyes. He cut her loose and pushed her to the captain.

"Take her." he growled. The captain took a hold of her wrist, and dragged her back to his ship. Zuko suddenly noticed the scowl that one of his solders was giving him.

"Sir, do you have any idea of what you just did?" he asked. Zuko just snorted in reply. "Many of those men have been at sea longer than us, you highness, and wouldn't have much opportunity to gain female flesh..." Now Zuko felt slightly guilty, but he covered that up and returned to their ship.

Sitting curled up in a small, two bed room, Katara thought over her predicament. She was trapped in a pirate ship, in the sea an unable to contact her friends with an ENTIRE CREW OF MEN. A man she couldn't recognise opened the door and steeped into the room, staring at her lustfully. He pulled her to her feet and tried to kiss her. But before her could, a fist collided with his fuzzy cheek. Attached to said fist was a boy with messy cut hair in dark blue and chocolate brown hair. He was the same height as her and his clearly slim frame was buried beneath too big, ragged clothes. His feet were bear and dirty. Both Katara and the pirate looked up at him in shock, they didn't realise that he was in there.

"Ben', I didn't see you in here." said the pirate with a slightly questioning look.

"Go. Away. Claw." Snarled Ben' in a voice a little high pitched for a boy. He ran his fingers through his hair and sat down on the bed that he had sprung from. "Sorry about that, the men have been at sea for a long time. Who are you, anyways, and how did you end up with this lot?" Katara told the boy of her tale, of Zuko binding her to the tree and off it all.

Ben' was the cabin boy on the pirate ship. As well as the basic cabin boy duties of cleaning, helping the cook, removing the barnacles and checking ropes and supportive boards on the ship, he had grown a protective air over Katara. Just like Sokka, he wouldn't let any of the men so much as touch her, except he done it in a more discreet and friendly manor. With the few weeks that Katara had been on the ship, she began to see the grand intelligence that radiated from Ben's chocolate brown eyes. Yet something still didn't seem quite right about the wise boy, barely a few weeks younger than Katara herself.

They were out in the middle of the sea, miles away from any form of safety, when a pirate tried to get at the young water bender again. This time it was Captain Goonë. He told Katara to go and clean his cabin when Ben' was below deck trying to fix the broken brig. It had been destroyed by its last occupant. Naively, Katara followed him into his cabin, took the cloth and bucket, and began to scrub the floor. Luckily, someone warned Ben'. He ran up onto the deck and darted up towards the captain's cabin. With a forceful kick, he knocked open the door. Just in time to see Captain Goonë attempting to rip away Katara's already sea-damaged dress.

"Don't you lay a finger on her, Goonë!" He snarled, taking a step closer. The captain glared up at him and towered over him in challenge. Ben' puffed out his chest, a little more than most men could, Katara noticed, and growled at the captain. "I mean it, Goonë." At first Goonë laughed, but when he saw the sheer anger and senerity in the pools of chocolate that played as the young boys eyes, he stepped back from his challenge with a tut.

"Fine, Ben', I won't take the girl. But I promise you, I shall have her eventually!" Swore the captain. Ben' then took Katara's hand and dragged her from the cabin, back down to theirs. Not if I can help it, thought Ben' as they left.

"Why did you trust him?!" Demanded Ben', angrily "You should know by now not to go into any room with another man on your own! Theses Men have been starved of female flesh for too long, they get desperate!" Katara looked up at him from her bunk with hurtful eyes

"…I stay in the same room as you though. On our own, at night." Pointed out Katara quietly, slightly frightened by the usually calm and happy boy's anger.

"Yeah. But. But I don't count!" Stammered Ben', sounding shocked.

"And why not?"

"Because I just don't. I have none of the same, crazy flesh needs of the crew!" Ben' snapped at her, but the instant he looked into her blue eyes, now filled with deep pools of sadness, he regretted getting angry at her. The rage flooded away. "I'm sorry, Katara. It's not your fault. It's Goonë's and its mine. I should have warned you before hand not to trust these men. I'm so very sorry." He put an arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer in a brotherly way. "When we get the chance, we'll escape, O.K?" Katara nodded. A plan was forming in the mind beneath the midnight blue hair.