"Prince Zuko," Captain to the sailing prisoner camp gruffly grabbed the Fire-Lord-in-waiting's attention from behind. "Have you found something?"
The prince slowly stood, running the item he had between his fingers.
Without turning, he answered with a simple and powerful, "No."
The guard backed down and stepped off the raised platform, head bowed respectfully. He coiled his hand tightly around the necklace.
"I've finally found you," he whispered, pressing his tight fist to his lips. "Helmsman!" Fire spit from Zuko's trained hands in his tension, calling up to the captain. "Set a course for – bank right!"
"That girl will lead us right to the Avatar." Uncle Iroh's wise voice stated beside him.
That girl…she will be my key home. The prince thought, staring out as the sun dipped below the watery horizon, casting its reflection on the golden surface of the Royal Sea. His hand clenched, the feel of silky thread and carved water-wood slipping through his fingers, only to be pulled up in a single, swift motion.
xXx
The catcalls and frenzied shouting of the pirates, with their uncultured tones, almost muffled out the frustrate yells over by an enclosed part of the river. Zuko traveled with some of the rudest, unmannerly, and dirty men he had ever seen. But they had known of the Avatar and where he and his companions were.
That voice…it's her…! He could have been beaming had that not been a tip off to his uncle who stood with hands folded in sleeves, face furrowed but at ease.
Iroh waved his hands to quiet the horde of scalawags, as Zuko motioned for the men to move in.
"Ah! Water whip – you stupid – work, damn you!" she cursed. "Urrrgh!" she huffed and the sound of water crashing sounded in the quiet of the forest.
"Heh heh, hey Girlie,"
Katara's back pedaled right into the arms of a beefy, grotesque scumbag. Zuko smothered his curses behind an armored hand. It was a part of the plan but, how dare that vile filth touch such a, a, a sacred beauty. A true spirit of the Ocean. And that pillager just manhandled her. If it had been Zuko himself, he would have – no. no tie for such trifling fantasies.
She was almost within reach. As well as the Avatar. He could have her, with an honor, home, and throne to his name. They would live a life of abundance. He heard her frightened gasp as his eyes focused back to the girl before him. If the situation hadn't been bad against him, he would have burst out laughing.
The water bender, in the heat of apprehensive reflexives, master the water whip and bitch-slapped the pirate with it. Jumping out of the thicket, he found his opportunity. She ran for her life, but made the mistake of looking back, and not forward in her escape. She ran straight into Zuko's arms. Time slowed. He cupped her hands up to his chest, staring down at her. She turned big and bright, clearly blue, eyes … and stared horrified at him. Thinking it the scar's fault, anger so deep in pent-up rage sparked inside of him. He tightened, his hold now around her wrists, and glared down at her.
A fire raged within him, curling with his ignited fury. His words laced with a low threat and spitting heat.
"I'll save you from the pirates."
xXx
"For a water bender, you certainly have quite the fire in those eyes." He paced before her, in slow, steady, and calculating strides.
Shackled to a tree, Katara's hung head shot daggers at the Fire Nation's heir. The bandits and brigadiers sat in an unorganized huddle, picking at their nails with tips of rusty blades and scratching themselves. Her eyes bore holes in Zuko's. He grinned maliciously back.
"Tell me where the Avatar is." his command was simple, the heat in his words were far more intricate.
"Go to hell," she ground out.
"Flames," he smirked. "I intend to, it's my home!"
Facing her, he turned his head to the side, good eye showing. His voice was directed towards the others.
"Leave." He commanded.
Shuffling away, the three men in his charge and the pirates left. He faced Katara fully.
"Katara," his voice went soft. "Please."
She spat in his face.
"U-RAGH!"
Fire blasted from his palms as he roared. Breathing heavily, he mopped off the saliva that slid from his eye to cheek.
"Release me." Her voice held the smallest hint of shaking, but her face remained fierce.
"Not until I have the Avatar." He rumbled behind gritted teeth. "That is he to you – why do you protect him?"
"He's what gives us hope!" The chains jangled as she fought against them. She jammed her face, smugly, inches from his own. "He's going to defeat you – and the Fire Nation!"
He kissed her. He cupped her face in two strong and unyielding fingers and kissed that beautiful face. Her eyes were glazed, glistening. She was too shocked to react and too immobilized to have done anything. The only option for her was to play along and hope he didn't intend to go any farther.
"Please release me…" she pleaded in his ear.
With a new fire glowing within him, he pressed his hands and lighted them with heat enough to burn through the rusted links. She wrung her wrists, free; and smiled at him. It was glorious. Until…
Her eyes glowed, glowered at him and before he had time to react, or to re-adjust, she shot him back in a tidal wave of power.
"Bwuh!" the air was whisked out of his lungs.
He flew backwards and was slammed against a tree. Zuko slid; legs spread wide, head lolling. He moaned and a silence that was much louder than yells slipped through the night. Katara's heart was racing. She ran for her life, taking a roundabout route back to camp – and this time she didn't look back.
A searing ball of flame licked her face as another body came crashing into hers. Zuko charged and bowled both of them to the unforgiving ground.
"Ah!" she screamed as her face hit the dirt. She struggled underneath him. "Let me go!"
"Stop squirming!" he yelled back at her, pinning her arms against her chest.
He was stretched on top of her, heavy armor pressing uncomfortably against her bruised torso.
"Do it," she glowered, a welcome rage flitting through her eyes. "Your nation killed my mother – it's in your blood to do the same to me!"
Zuko blanched. Where the heat of frustration and anger was, a calming flood of sympathy and horror took its place.
"The Fire Nation killed your mother…?" his voice was pained, straining against the mixed torrent of emotions whipping through him.
He eased up on her until he sat father away. He didn't care if she escaped now. She didn't deserve to be getting dragged back to the place that caused her mother's murder for Zuko's selfish reasons.
"Yes." She didn't fight him or run off again, just lost in the sadness of her past. "My father and all the other able men had to go to help with war efforts because of you… your people,"
The prince's face fell. "You don't have a family?"
Because of me… because of my family…
"I have my brother," her voice had become soft, almost inaudible.
"But…it's not the same." He noted the look on her face and finished her sentence, voice cracking and heart breaking.
She turned her stricken face away, hands clutching at her neck as if something should be there.
"My mother's necklace…" she sounded so hurt. "It was all I had left to remember her by. Wearing it close to my heart, made me feel like she was still with me," Her face turned dark. "But now that's gone, too."
Zuko perked up after a quietly dim moment. "N-no it isn't!" his voice had the air of incredulous surprise. "Close your eyes."
She immediately became guarded, scooting further back from him.
"No."
He sighed, looking down. "I know I can't ask you to trust me, it's not fair and would be impossible,"
"No, it isn't fair." She interjected.
"But just this once…what more can I do to you?"
She inhaled through her nose deeply. "Alright," she spoke after a moments indecisive thought. "But only on the condition I get to have my water ready."
Smart girl. He smiled dimly. "Of course."
She exhaled and from the puddle beside her, water collected in a single stream. She tested her reflex. Like a vinesnake, the water darted out and cut through a branch on nearby brush like a column of fire through a sheet of ice. Impressed, Zuko nodded his appreciation and understanding. The warning was self-evident. She closed her crystal eyes to the night and heard the quick sounds of rustles and scuffling.
"Open your eyes." His voice was a low thrum in her ear.
She did as directed and felt a familiar and welcome weight on her neck. Her eyes flashed down and a smile brighter than any sun stretched across her dim lit features.
"My mother's necklace!" her voice retained a breathy quality of exalted joy. "Oh, Zuko, I—" She had jolted closer to him; her body a dog pose before him. "…Zuko."
in his eyes she could see his smile of happiness did not carry. He had relinquished his only evidence of her left to him. She brought her hand up to the right side of his face, the marred flesh glazed and where it rippled rough. It was his turn to shy away, hiding the ruin that was his eye. She cupped his cheek regardless, attempting to bring his face around to look at hers squarely. He could not. Teeth gritted with a sharp exhale as she ran her fingers over the razed edges.
"I was banished from my country. For two years now." It was a struggle to get the words out, a painful reminder. They tumbled out of their own accord, not even conscious he was really saying them.
Katara looked horrified. "Your father banished you?" She weakly tried to wrap her mind around the concept. How could a father do that to his son? She tried to imagine her own father, the imposing yet kind Hakoda casting out her own brother of their village. She could not imagine the kind of fury and hatred, the loathing and distance, a man would have to attain in order to go through with that kind of an act. "B-but," she flailed her hands before her face, grappling for an answer. When one came to her, her tone steeled itself and her features were sharp and cold like an icicle on the caves just outside the Northern Water Tribe. "…why?" Unless it was deserved. She sobered and tensed herself back.
"In his war-time chambers, I had spoken out against a general. The man had wanted to send the new recruits – young men of our nation! – to their deaths to further our fight against the Earth Kingdom. Rising lives thrown away for a plot and a cause I still had yet to fully understand." With each word, he was dragged further and further into the memory. The soil he rolled in his grasp was crushed as he relived these moments; the fire blasting in his palm charring the earth into ash. He let the remnants fall from his clutches, like everything else seemed to.
"That's… that's awful." She knew the Fire Nation was ruthless. But for them to stoop so low…no. She could believe it. With a leader as brutish and insane as the Fire Lord, with one just as bad – if not worse – in waiting, Katara could believe the tale. Were all people borne into that place inherently bad? She never thought it was possible, but it seemed all too likely.
"Yes. It is awful. And by disrespecting the general by voicing my distaste, I challenged him to a fight. A fight for honor. Back home we call this an Agni Kai," Katara was in rapturous silence, taking in his word and sinking deeper into the story. So the plot unfurls and the mysteries of the Prince are revealed and laid bare. "But because it was in my Fathers quarters, it was really he whom I had dishonored." He paused, gathering a shaky breath before continuing. "I stood expecting General Xi… but I turned to face my own Father."
Katara gasped. She had not been expecting that, though the foreshadowing should have dictated it to her sooner. Her hand trembled as she covered her mouth in horror.
"I wouldn't fight him – I couldn't!" the Prince's eyes looked so young and raw with the pain of that day. The flesh beneath his marred skin twitched. "I had only ever wanted his love. I had bent down on my knees in reverence, begging him and pleading my apologies."
"And did he take them?" she asked of him after a moments silence, voice as quiet as the creak that bubbled beside them. The slivered moon reflected off its surface in a shining coat of light.
Zuko looked at her, eyes wide and scarred, traumatized by the memory of his life – a past life that felt so long ago. He bit his lip and averted his gaze, mentally beating himself for this show of vulnerability. What about this peasant-girl made him want to spill forth every detail of his pathetic life?
"No…no, he didn't." The shadow cast his face into darkness, obscuring his amber eyes and the pain they were sure to show. "Instead… instead he taught me a lesson."
"Your scar."
"Yes." He glowered at a crack in the dry dirt, lip curled in a ferocious snarl. "My mangled face was a present from my dear old Father."
She saw fingers caressing the area of his teaching and realized that they dark appendages were hers. "Your family abandoned you."
"No!" It wasn't a shout, but his voice was clear. Like a knife through its victim, it cut the rent the calm night air. "I have my Uncle. And though my sister would hate it, my Father will accept me back into his graces." He has to…
"Ho-?"
"That's why I need the Avatar," His head whipped around to face hers, voice instilled with a small spark of hope, fierce, golden eyes bright. "He is my mission – and my key home."
She stood with dark eyes the color of the sky and ocean on a midnight's journey. He was still sprawled on all fours, staring up the line of her body.
"I'm sorry, Prince Zuko," her voice was cold and firm. Her using his formal name so harshly, spittingly, was like a slap to his face. "But Sokka and Aang are all the family I have left now."
Zuko jumped to his feet, scrambling awkwardly as his armor meddled in his attempts. "But, but, he's not even part of your family-!"
"Yes. He is."
"If you hand him over, and I deliver him to my Father, the war can end!" his eyes were wild and glistening with the numerous prospects he so envisioned. "You could finally get your father back!"
She graced him with a sad smile; eyes shaded, and placed a hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes with a sigh, rubbing into her hand in good confidence. Her palm smelled of earthen herbs used for medicinal purposes no doubt and of the poppy flower.
"Oh, Zuko," she let out a melancholic breath. "The War will never end."
His eyes opened slowly and he saw a tear leak from her covered ones. His mouth opened involuntarily, in sorrow and perplexing thought. Her hand dropped from his face as she sniffed and tried to stifle the oncoming tears.
"I am so sorry," she stopped to clear her throat and her tone came out much firmer, more convicted and resolute. "But I can not give you the Avatar."
With that she ran back into the woods, but Zuko no longer had it in him to chase her down. His arm dropped meekly at her departure. He could hear the sobs echoing through the wood, lowering the deeper in she ran. His chest thumped and thudded within his chest painfully. He had no girl, no key, no home, no country, and no. honor. He had nothing.
But through all that he lacked, he had drive. Determination. A dagger with the words Never give up without a fight. Though crippled with the grief pressed down on him at all he had lost, he would push past this and settle on a new horizon.
"Don't worry," he spoke to no one, clenching and unclenching the hand he stared down at. "I'll find you again." Her name was but a breath on his lips. "Katara…"
A/N: So…? Thoughts? I'd love ta hear 'em! Send some reviews my way! And if you're reading this part, let me just say, thank you for getting through this story!
Though I must admit, it is my least favorite out of the onslaught of new Zutara works I am in the process of publishing. It pales in comparison to the dynamic and time I spent working on the others.
But regardless, I appreciate any sentiment you can spare, so please don't hesitate to write a review : ) It would mean so much to me :D
Thank you!