Title - The Turtleduck Prince

Author - scratch-this

Rating - T

Pairing - Katara/Zuko (don't like, totally NOT my problem)

Word count - 637

Disclaimer - Avatar and respective characters belong to Mike and Bryan.

Notes - Started for the Animated Zutara Challenge at the lj community katarazuko but because of outcome of popular opinion will now be a chapter fic. As for the animated equivalent it would be The Swan Princess (who made that film, Fox?).

Prologue

The full moon sent her glittering light along the water of the pond that lay in the middle of the royal courtyard of the Fire Nation's mighty palace. On that man made pond sedately sat a lone turtleduck, whose gaze was transfixed on the slow moving ray. It traveled ever so slowly toward where the creature waded in the shallow water. Closer and closer it crept toward the fowl, taunting him purposefully, but the creature remained unmoved by her insult.

Closer and closer came the moonlight.

Stiller and stiller stayed the duck.

Until, finally, it touched a tip of the little turtleduck's shell.

And thus began something strange. With that single touch the creature illuminated a bright yellow hue, and, as if on cue, a brilliant dark turquoise veil of glistening water engulfed the animal, like a predator would its prey. Electricity shot through the air and all was still with expectation. Nature held her breath…

…and then let it go.

The veil fell. Splashing away and where was once a small turtleduck now stood a glaring prince who tilted his scared face vehemently at the full white moon.

She teasingly twinkled back in reply.

"Such a lovely night, wouldn't you say?" A mocking voice interrupted his quarrel with the haughty moon.

The prince turned toward the sound, cloaking his would be hateful expression with a mask of cold indifference. He could not allow his visitor the upper hand, and a show of any sort of emotion could cause him more anguish than he already felt. Why further his torment? She'd leave him soon enough if her nightly amusement was found lacking, as it had been since he'd learned to deal with this… situation. "Good evening, Azula."

"I would have come by earlier but you were…preoccupied." She said the last word with a wicked grin and then continued her insults: "Oh, how full your days are brother dear."

He just stared back at her unmoved and unimpressed.

So, their game of bait and bite began, or ended, depending on how sharply she tried or how tactfully he replied. Tonight, he won. He did not bite. She became bored and left.

And now he was alone again. Always alone it seemed, well except for his sister, but that didn't count as company. Solitude doesn't necessarily rely on the quantity of the persons around but the quality. Azula's quality left little to be desired and thus he was alone. And he supposed, no, he knew that it was to be forever this way. Until he died or until she did it for him.

Then again, did it matter which?

- - - -

Katara sighed as she watched the moon, her element's strength and once upon a time friend, distinguish herself in the night sky like a pearl that had fallen from its strand upon a navy hued carpet.

Oh, how long had it been? Two? Three? Four months? She really couldn't tell anymore. In the beginning she had scratched a mark on her cell wall with each setting of the sun to help her keep track. After a while though, with the marks increasing in number more than her mind would allow her to bear, she had stopped. And now she was uninformed and, more importantly, imprisoned for what she assumed would be a very, very, long time.

She thought that it would be fitting for her to cry at this dire acknowledgement, but in truth she had given up long ago. Her heart was sore from hope now wasted and dead. The belief that she could help, that she could change the fates of men was a childish fancy that was now, and had been for some time, broken and beaten to its appropriate place: lifeless and beneath the ground.

Hope would never take hold of her again.

Okay, so there's the prologue. Reviews are love! And YES, I realize how horrible the grammar and stuff is. I tried. Constructive criticism is always helpful but be nice, okay? Flames are rude.