On the first day, all she did was shout at the guards to let her out.
The second day, she refused her food and cried for her brother and the Avatar a lot.
On the third day, she checked her cell over exhaustively for any chink or loose nail she could exploit in an escape attempt. She didn't find anything, of course.
On the fourth day, she sat cross-legged in the middle of her cell and kept her eyes closed and didn't say a word, which really freaked the guards out. That afternoon, one of the engineers reported hearing an odd noise outside the ship's hull, and upon investigation, we discovered that she'd been bending tiny ice shards against the outside of the ship, obviously hoping to wear through it and escape. She'd barely made a scrape in the thick iron, but given enough time, she would have done it. We moved her to a cell as far away from any water as we could, and she looked at me with sulky blue eyes as I locked her in.
On the fifth day, we hit the mother of all storms. It whipped up at about three in the morning while the watchman was dozing, and shook the ship around like a baby with a rattle. When it did not let up for three hours, I began to fear I'd never be able to keep food down again. When it did not let up for six hours, I actually had to think for a moment to remember what land was. When it did not let up for twelve hours, I began to literally fear for my life.
Lieutenant Jee was at the controls, fighting waves that looked like mountains as they loomed over our tiny vessel. "Get the Waterbender girl!" he shouted.
"No!" I screamed, stumbling across the heaving deck to stop the sailor who had begun to wobble out to obey. "Let her loose in this and she'll only escape! She's the key to the Avatar!"
"She's our only chance!" Jee roared. "This storm'll tear the ship apart otherwise!"
He had a point. "Fine," I growled. "I'll get her myself."
The rolling and lurching only got worse in the narrow confines of the corridors below decks. Many of the lanterns had been knocked over and gone out, so there were stretches of blackness punctuated by sickly wavering flames.
At first I thought her cell was empty, but then I saw her wedged in the corner of the chamber, arms and legs braced against the bars and her bed to keep herself from being pitched about.
"Come on!" I shouted as I unlocked her cell, trying to make myself heard over the roar and thunder of the ship and the storm. She looked at me blankly. "Come on!" I repeated, gesturing emphatically for her to get up and follow me. Her eyes lit up. Did she think I was helping her escape? I sneered as I turned away, and she followed me like an eager shadow as I led her back up to the navigation room.
"Where are we going?" she called to me when it became apparent that I wasn't leading her outside. It was sinking in then, was it?
"The control room," I said harshly, starting up the long stairwell. It was remarkably difficult to stay upright on the steps as the ship pitched back and forth like that. The girl, I noticed crossly, had no trouble keeping her balance. I prayed to Agni that she could do something.
We somehow reached the navigation room, and her eyes widened when she saw the raging ocean outside. I found it subtly comforting that she should react that way. She feared the furious sea the same way any Firebender would fear a blazing firestorm.
Jee had seen the girl. "Quick!" he screamed, wrangling the wheel like it was a wild eel hound. "Do something!" She stared about with wide eyes for a moment before grabbing my arm.
"The deck!" she shouted. "How do I get down there?"
"You think we're letting you outside in this?" I demanded incredulously.
"Do you want me to save your stupid ship or not?" was the terse reply.
I cursed but took her wrist and dragged her back out and down the stairwell and through the door onto the deck, which was really more like a lake at this point. She sloshed forward, arms out and head tilted up to meet the falling water. Her peasant's garb was quickly soaked through and clung to her body like a blue second skin.
She began by bending the falling rain into a sort of shield above her head, which slowly extended with each graceful movement of her arms. I had never seen her bend unless she was fighting me, and even then she was inept and weak. This was different. This was powerful. This was confident, not desperate. Her time in the North Pole had obviously been worthwhile.
The water shield was nearly as wide as the ship now, and with a quick twist of her hips and thrust of her arms, it was as long as the deck as well as being substantially wider. I stared up in amazement, trying to think of equivalent Firebending I could do.
Snap out of it, Zuko. She's just a Water Tribe peasant, not your equal. You're the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, for crying out loud! Who cares how good a bender she is? Stop staring. Stop. Stop it!
With a cry that startled me, the girl lunged forward and down, and the vast water shield crashed out of the air and into the violent sea. As her bended water and that of the ocean met, a clamorous roar met my ears, but it was gone in a matter of seconds, and I stared out in amazement at the still water that surrounded our ship in all directions for fifty feet or more. Rain again hammered down on us since her shield was gone, but the ocean itself was still. We sat in a little island of tranquility while only a small distance away waves the size of the Palace crashed and thundered against each other. I looked at the girl with abject awe: her back was to me, her arms slowly revolving in those smooth, alien Waterbending gestures; her stance was low and strong; her head was bowed in deep concentration as the rain attacked her, born by sharp gusts of wind from every side that whipped her ragged skirt around and tossed her tangled hair. I knew nothing of her savage culture and their gods, but I suspected she looked a lot like one of them just now.
The storm raged on for another three hours, and the Waterbender barely moved but to adjust her stance in that whole time. I stayed on deck as well, because if she should suddenly have a change of heart and leap overboard, I had to be there to fetch her back. At least, that's what I told Uncle. My actual motivations were twofold: first, it was fascinating to watch her. Even when she twitched a finger, her element responded, and the focus evident in her face and posture was hypnotic. Second, I was sort of hoping she'd faint and I would get to lift her up and carry her safely back to her cell…. Princes were supposed to do heroic things like that, right? So far today, she'd been doing all the rescuing, and it was making me feel a little funny.
But as the rain eventually tapered off to a steady pattering trickle rather than a full on deluge and the wind began to freshen and gentle, the girl finally dropped her arms and sagged onto the deck with evident exhaustion. It was dusk and the edge of some part of the Earth Kingdom was visible just to the south.
"Wow…" someone breathed, and I turned to see that most of the crew was gathered behind me in the bulkhead. Each and every set of eyes was wide and amazed. I wondered how long they'd been there, and blood rushed to face. Those ridiculous things about heroism I'd been thinking…
"Never mind that," I snapped, my embarrassment erasing the tranquil awe of a moment ago. "Go and bring her back in. She's still our prisoner."
Most of them snapped to attention, but some didn't, and I scowled as I led the way across the lake of a deck towards her.
"Stand up, peasant," I commanded as I drew near. "You can rest back in your cell."
She did stand up, but she looked defiant, even under the blatant exhaustion. "You're kidding."
"I am not," I countered, but just then something happened to my feet. I looked down and saw that the water still draining off the sides of the deck had instead become a solid block of ice encasing me up to the middle of my shin. It would take some minutes to melt it enough to get free, and longer to get it all the way off to avoid frostbite without causing a burn. The dismayed noises from behind me confirmed that the men who had followed me were experiencing the same thing.
My gaze snapped back up to the girl, whose right hand was poised out in a now-familiar Waterbending gesture. Damn her….
"I'll be going now," she said sweetly, and a long tongue of water arched over the side of the ship to wrap snugly about her waist and lift her away. She waved cheekily as she receded towards the shore, still perhaps a mile distant, but after seeing her single-handedly tame the storm, I had no doubt she would make it. The Waterbender had been my one sure-fire way of capturing the Avatar, and she had slipped through my fingers, leaving me with nothing but frozen legs and the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth.
A/N: Slight canon manipulation here, guys. Zuko never got his ship blown up by the pirates (let's pretend that makes sense for Zhao's character, yah?), and he somehow managed to capture Katara after the Book 1 finale when she's a Master Waterbender (I know, as if. Just go with it). The result is what you see above!
"Peasant's garb"? Seriously, Zuko? LOL.
E.I. signing out.