A/N: This is the beginning of my fic for Zutara Week 2017. I decided pretty much last minute that I wanted to take one of my concepts for one of the prompts and bring it in to all of the prompts. Thus, this entire fic will consist of seven chapters, one for each of the prompts this week.
I will update this note with any key issues or TWs that may be necessary. Warning for: Kidnapping.
Please consider this fic to be its own self-contained AU still within the A:TLA universe but not following the canon timeline that we all know. I have yet to decide how, when, or if Aang will be awoken in this timeline due to circumstances that should be apparent as soon as the story begins.
Cheers, and happy ZK week to us all!
A Selfish Kindness
Prompt: Fire Lady
"Why do you care for that blue-eyed brat anyhow?" Katara swallowed her pride and focused on the metal panels beneath her boots. She was sweating in them, here in the depths of the Fire Nation war machine. They were all she had left of her own culture's attire. Her parka and heavy woolen clothing had been exchanged for lightweight cotton pants and tunic.
It wasn't her decision what she wore. The boots remained because no one on the ship had shoes in the same size as the young girl. No one willing to part with a pair, that is. Katara had stolen glances at the other girl on board, the one with hair as dark as the night and a cruel glint in her eyes. Fire Princess, Katara heard her referred to as. No one would expect the young noble to give up her wardrobe for a captive.
Katara stayed out of the way, a curiosity for her captors to ogle at and then forget about. Someone to be spoken about but never to. "All she does is stare at the soldiers. Does she speak?" The ship's captain, a broad-shouldered man who towered over every other man and woman on board, stepped into Katara's view. He gripped her chin and twisted her eyes to meet his.
"Well then, whelp? Can you speak?" he demanded. She only glared in response, her hands shaking. They'd taken everything from her and still they wanted more. They wanted her words, her obedience in every request.
The nobles and high-ranking soldiers at the table laughed at her insolence and jeered at the captain for expecting the "uncivilized brat" to respond. Katara bared her teeth in a snarl as only an eight-year-old could, completely indignant even surrounded by her enemies.
"Enough." The voice of reason ended the mockery. No one dared to countermand the noblewoman's orders. She sat at the head of the table, the current representative of the Fire Nation's monarch. Katara jerked her head out of the captain's grip and savored her victory. Her silence remained unbroken. "Come here, girl," the woman said firmly.
Katara left the wall and stood stiffly next to her. "Sit and eat," the woman ordered. "And if you do not eat then at least stop glaring at Captain Zhao. You aren't to cause any more trouble. Is that understood?"
Nodding mutely, Katara sat herself down. Her stomach growled as she directed her furious glare to the platter in front of her. No matter the kindness shown by the lady to her left, she knew it was a falsehood, a lie. She would not eat the delicate fruit, the glazed meats, the puffed pastries. A joke went about the table that she did not know how to eat anything that hadn't swum in the ocean.
Her feet sweated in her boots as fire flared on her cheeks. She would survive this.
After the feast, Katara was sent back to the bunk room that was her prison. It had been covered with draped scarves and delicately embroidered cushions to disguise the functionality with finery. Katara didn't have to be an adult to see through the illusion. It was a cell.
How she would have preferred to be down in the belly of the other ships, where she'd seen the others of her tribe taken to. Yelling, crying, pleading with the soldiers in the snow had done her no good. They were confused at first as to what to do with a child captive. Keeping her with the adult benders was a courtesy that they were unwilling to give. In years to come, Katara would realize she had tricked fate and escaped the labor camps. Her path had been decided for her by a tall, dark haired noble woman.
She had stepped out from the belly of the flagship surrounded by her own private guard. The sight turning Katara's stomach as she watched the woman glide past fallen Water Tribe warriors without a second glance. Stopping by the soldier who had bound Katara's wrists, the woman spoke at Katara. "Do you wish to live, child?"
Terrified and distraught, Katara nodded. She had hoped to be allowed to remain with the others. "Then you will come with me and be a ward of the royal family," the Fire Lady insisted. She took a knife offered by one of her guards and cut the rope binding Katara's hands. It was then that Katara became a symbol of the Fire Lord's finished conquest over the South Pole.
Katara didn't want to think about the fate of her tribe. She missed her brother, left behind at the Pole as a non-bender and disregarded as a threat to her new, adopted Nation. She wasn't even told if her parents had survived the raid.
Katara threw herself onto her bed, curling into herself. She couldn't bear to think about the land she'd left behind. Even still, her fingers brushed over the stubby texture of her boots, fingernails stabbing into the rough suede as she felt anger once again overtake her sadness. The tears that had spilled onto her red cheeks had been accompanied by silent heaves.
"You didn't eat anything," a boy's voice interrupted her emotional turmoil. Katara wriggled further into the corner of the bed. She didn't need reminding that her stomach was empty. "I brought a plate."
She didn't need his charity, either.
Katara laid on the bed, counting her breaths until he gave up and left. They always did. No one could stand her silence.
The boy whispered, his words too quiet for Katara to hear. That was new. As was the gentle murmur in response. "Give her time," the Fire Lady comforted her son. "Let's sit on the cushions. Come on."
Growling, Katara kicked off from the wall and rolled onto the floor, her booted feet hitting the deck plate with a thunk. She crouched low, drawing the pose from one of the "warrior's drills" that her brother did daily with her father. Thinking of them made her grimace widen.
The boy froze, holding the tray of food in front of his face. His mother paused and tipped her head to the side. "You don't want us to sit with you?" she asked.
Katara shook her head. It didn't count as breaking her silence, according to her rules. The boy tried to balance the tray on one hand and gave up when it started to tip forward. "Mom," he hissed, "why do we even want to make her feel welcome? She hates us."
"That's why it's important," his mother replied. She took a small step forward. "Because she hates us. She has every right to, but still she is going to have to live with us."
The boy edged behind his mother, but he, too, moved forward. "But she won't even talk," he mumbled.
Katara balled her hands up into fists, shuffling to stand in front of the cushions. It didn't help. The harder she tried to send them away, the closer the Fire Lady and her son came. The woman knelt to be face to face with the small girl, unflinching even as Katara's fists shook.
"If you want us to leave, you must say so," the woman said. "Otherwise, we are going to sit there." She pointed to the cushions behind Katara.
Screwing her face up, Katara fought back angry tears. Either way she was conceding something to the Fire Nation monarch. She wouldn't actually hit the woman. There were soldiers, the Imperial Guard, outside her door who would surely hurt her in retaliation. Her desire for silence won out and she ceded the floor space to the pair of nobles.
"That's better," the woman said with a smile. "Now we can get to know one another properly. You may call me Lady Ursa. You've already met my son, Zuko."
If the ship had been warm, the Fire Nation itself was a sweltering cesspool of humidity. Katara could sense the moisture all around her always. Relief was short, in the form of occasional rainstorms. More often than not, however, dark clouds in the sky only meant lightning storms devoid of actual rain. The very land around Katara was her torturer.
Retaining her silence became her only solace. Only once had she broken it. The Fire Lord demanded that she be brought before him; he had not gone with his family to the South Pole when Katara had been taken. The raid was not enough of a priority for him to leave the Palace. She knelt before him, listened to Captain Zhao tell of her tribe's defeat, and ground her teeth stop herself from screaming her promise to kill him for thinking so low of her people.
The Fire Lord cared not for why his wife had shown mercy to the young waterbender. "The girl is young enough yet. She can live in my house and remain unbound as my dear wife has decided. I do not fear the effect of a single Water Tribe whelp in the seat of Fire Nation might. But she will not learn waterbending," he drawled, intent on dismissing her and the Captain after his decision was made.
Katara had stood up at that, a visceral reaction to the declaration. "I am the last free waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe," she snarled. "I am not a whelp. My name is Katara and I-"
The Fire Lord laughed at her words, his voice booming out from behind the fanning flames that scorched the air. "You are nothing, little one. You are Katara of the house Ozai now. And you will learn your place." He had ignored her further outcries and sent her away without a second thought.
Katara resented her status initially. She was invisible to all who visited the palace. The crown prince and princess ignored her on the good days. On bad ones, the princess remembered that she existed and made it her mission to torment the young girl who was not her sister and yet bore the name of house Ozai.
"You should be dead." Azula threw the words out over dinner one evening as easily as she commented on the weather. Her golden eyes glinted in the firelight of the sconces on the wall. Everything glinted in the Fire Nation, but it was all wrong. Gold and orange surrounded Katara where blue and white once had.
"I'm speaking to you, Icicle," the princess taunted. Katara looked at the girl before flicking her eyes over to the empty head and foot of the table. Of course. They were only under the watch of the crown princess's tutors this evening. Zuko had been allowed to take his dinner in his father's study doing spirits knew what. It wasn't as though Katara mattered enough to be told what the rest of her so-called family did.
Katara exhaled, a smirk twitching on her face. That only infuriated Azula further. "What, you think it's funny?" she fumed. Azula had only just turned eight. Her temper flared easily and was untempered by her tutors who feared the wrath of the Fire Lord should they displease his darling daughter. "I bet you wish you were dead."
A tip of the head and a furrow of her brow conveyed confusion, bewilderment even. Azula stood from her seat and leaned over the table. "I wish you were dead. We don't need any stupid waterbenders stinking up the palace," she bellowed.
That was it. The yelling attracted the attention of the adults down the hall. Azula only got out a few more shouts about how Katara didn't deserve to live before she was swept up in one curl of an arm. The one person who could tell Azula what to do dropped the young girl back onto her seat cushion.
"If you say that again, I will have your mouth washed out with soap. Do you hear me, young lady?" Lady Ursa scolded. Trailing behind his mother, a curious expression as always plastered across his face, Zuko merely watched the situation play out in front of him. He regarded Katara's carefully blank expression and his sister's red face with equal care.
Azula stormed out from the dinner hall, tears streaming down her face. Her shouts at the servants who got in her way echoed down the hallway into the room. Katara chewed on the inside of her lip to keep from laughing.
The Fire Lady turned her attention then to the inattentive tutors, spelling out once again how they shouldn't let Azula do as she pleased without retribution. The object of the princess's torment, however, was given no consideration. Katara took her pleasure where she could get it; it didn't matter to her if the woman who had claimed her actually showed her genuine care.
Still, her eyes burned slightly as she watched the woman go through the motions to protect Katara without once looking at her directly. Katara shoved herself to her feet and slipped away to the inner garden. Footsteps echoed in the hall a half dozen steps behind, crunching on the dried grass when they reached the dying oasis.
"You goaded her," the older boy stated simply. Katara picked her way down the winding path, hopping from stone to stone. Zuko didn't get a pass on her rule of silence simply because he was taking this moment to actually speak to her like a human being.
He didn't follow the path, stomping in a straight line to intersect with her. He touched her shoulder to get her attention. Katara whirled around, teeth bared in a grimace. "Sorry, sorry," Zuko pleaded. He lifted his hands in the air to show that he wasn't touching her.
Katara narrowed her eyes and huffed. Crossing her arms, she dropped down to sit by the edge of a dried-out pool. It was no longer the height of summer and yet the gardens were all like this, dry husks. Another torment to the stranded waterbender.
"You shouldn't do that to her. Goad her, that is," Zuko said. He sat down as well, crossing his legs. His knee almost brushed against hers. Katara huffed again, unimpressed by his threat.
He crossed his arms to mirror her. "I'm not saying she should talk like that to you. But if you keep annoying her, she's going to get worse. And you're not always gonna have my mom there to defend you," Zuko insisted.
Katara raised an eyebrow and pointed to him. "What, me? What about me?" Zuko asked, incredulous. She continued to point at him repeatedly before sighing exasperatedly. Pantomiming two people walking with her fingers, Katara had one kick the other. She pointed in the direction of the dining room with the hand that had been kicked and the other at Zuko.
He watched, wide eyed. "I'm not gonna hurt Azula," he whispered as though the very words might summon his sister there to beat him up for even thinking about it.
Sighing again, Katara shook her head. It wasn't worth it to try and convey what she meant to Zuko. She should have known better than to expect anyone of the Fire Lord's family to genuinely care about her. Katara turned away from him and stared at the empty pool in front of her. Counting in her head, she waited for him to leave. Yet again he disappointed her.
"What do you do all day?" he asked. "Azula hates you and you can't be in lessons with her and her teachers the whole time. So, what do you do?"
Katara lifted a shoulder and dropped it back down. Most days she wandered the halls, utterly indistinguishable from any of the servant girls save for her darker skin and bright, blue eyes. In the six months that she'd been a prisoner here she had yet to find a comfortable routine or purpose. Zuko was correct in his assumptions - Azula didn't want her to follow around the crown princess or her noble friends. That left a lot of free time in-between meals, where she was expected to sit and do nothing of note, and classes, where she did more of the same.
"Do you hate Azula back?" Zuko pressed. Katara barked out a single laugh. What kind of question was that? The nod she made was earnest and so clearly well earned. How could she not hate the girl who reminded her that Katara was unwanted?
Zuko remained pensive, pulling up strands of dried grass. "Sometimes I think that I do, too," he admitted quietly. "But she's my sister and she's family. So, I can't really hate her. So maybe you should think like that, too."
Katara lurched to her feet, the slow stoked fire of fury in her belly set alight at his innocent, oblivious suggestion. Everything was fire here. Fire and heat and misery. It was burning her up, consuming everything that she had been before she was of house Ozai.
"You are not my family!" Katara yelled. "I hate your sister, I hate your father. I even hate your stupid mom, too." Zuko was aghast, having fallen back onto his elbows in shock. He regarded Katara with fear and confusion, finally shocked from his all-too-curious demeanor.
"I never asked to be taken by her. I'd rather be dead, just like Azula says. Why didn't they just kill me?" she sobbed. "I know you all killed my family and my tribe. Just kill me, too." She was on her hands and knees, tears spilling out onto the earth below. The greedy soil sapped at the moisture, wicking it away and erasing the mark that Katara had been there.
Zuko continued to stare at her, his mouth clenched in a tight line. He watched as she cried her eyes out, chest heaving and fist slamming on the ground in front of her. She had to get it all out, the emotions that were destroying her from the inside out. The fire had to be extinguished.
The boy put a hand on her shoulder again and it hurt even more to feel that ounce of kindness. Katara sucked in a breath to try and steady herself once more only to let out another heaving sob. She should have been stronger than this. She had made it six months in this prison on her own.
"I'm sorry," Zuko whispered. His hand twitched when another sob wracked through her, fearing that Katara was about to lash out.
She turned her face to look up at him. "Don't ever tell me that I can't hate you people. I hate your mother for sentencing me to this and calling it a kindness," she spat. Zuko recoiled, betrayal spelled out on his far too expressive face.
He apologized again, this time with earnest. Katara sat up onto her knees, prepared to shove him away as he opened his arms. Her venom was all spent, however, and she pressed herself into his embrace.
"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Zuko repeated, over and over until Katara wiped herself of all her rage and frustration.
