My first ATLA fic! I'm very excited.

Also, this isn't necessarily a Zutara fic. It's a very complex story. You really can't say that it's just about the two of them. So yeah.

But I also want to try something totally new. I read a fic by an extremely talented writer once, and she did this, so I thought I'd try it, too: I'm going to give you a soundtrack to the story, to achieve something like total immersion into this fictional world. If you don't want to, you do not, of course, have to listen to the music while you read, but I hope that you do. And if you end up hating it, just let me know, because that would be a shame.

Please enjoy, and R&R if you like, just to give me some encouragement, if you liked it. Or if you didn't. Criticism is appreciated.

So I think that's it.

The soundtrack for this chapter is:

Demi Lovato - Skyscraper

Survivor - Eye of the Tiger

I suggest that you have them waiting, because when I say play, it's go time. Enjoy!

Skyscraper – Play!

He has her in shackles. She is boiling with rage.

The guards are not supposed to speak to her – Captain's orders. But who's going to tell him? They taunt her, call her names, but that's okay. She has heard it all before. The worst thing is when they bring the water. She still feels it calling to her, the beautiful song of her people, the song that was inside of her for so long. Without it, she feels so lost.

How could he do this to her?

She is almost empty. But not entirely so. The fire that comes with her fury is a good enough placeholder for the water right now.

They throw the water into her cell sometimes, and it splashes around her feet in little puddles. She longs to soak it all up. She would try to get at it with her hands, if they weren't held over her head. Not that it would help, anyway. That water would do nothing for her. She knows it with as much certainty as she knows that he will come. He cannot resist, cannot resist her. If he could, he wouldn't have had to lock her up in the first place, would he? She chuckles bitterly. While she waits for him, she sometimes remembers what Gran-Gran had told her about Fire Lords when she was a little girl in the Southern Water Tribe.

"They are living Gods to their people, Katara, and they behave like it, too. That is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness." She would bring her mouth very close to her granddaughter's ear. "I'm going to tell you a secret. Fire Lords are human, too. And they are lonely. I don't know whether there has ever been a Fire Lord that wasn't lonely. So – here's what you need to know, what every person should know: you do not kill a Fire Lord with hatred. Do you know how you kill one?" Katara would look up at her, confused, and shake her head, even though she had heard the answer many times. And her grandmother would smile sadly, and tell her.

Stop Music.

Eye of the Tiger – Play!

His footsteps echo through the prison; the price to pay for iron soles. The guards shy away from him as he approaches. The price to pay for an iron soul. But the thing about iron is that it melts, isn't it? It surprised him when he first felt it. It is still difficult to feel today. Especially today.

She's sleeping as he reaches her cell, head lolling to one side. But he doesn't even have to say her name to wake her up. He wouldn't have, in any case. It pleases him more to watch her sleep. Hearing her voice is so much more painful. But it's as if his presence sends a jolt of electricity through her. With a shiver, she opens her eyes. He turns away before she can see his face, and beckons to the nearest guard. The man almost tip-toes towards him. His eyes betray an animalistic kind of terror.

"Unbind her." He doesn't have to ask twice. Of course not. No one had ever made him ask twice for anything, until a year ago.

As the guard enters the cell and approaches the prisoner, the Fire Lord's voice rings out from behind him. "Be careful," he says, staring into her deceitfully tired blue eyes. "She bites." The guard's hands quiver as he unlocks the shackles that bind her hands and feet. Although he knows that it's impossible for her to have the strength required to attack the man, the Fire Lord feels a strange tingle of anticipation in his fingertips. But he is right. She can barely move, or won't. The guard exits the cell unharmed. His exhalation is almost disappointed.

"Leave us," he says, without looking at the men. They are not worth looking at, not when he has her to watch instead. He leans his forehead against the bars and closes his eyes. It's a while before he hears her voice, calling out to him. He barely recognizes it, so delightfully thin and dry.

"Are you enjoying this?" It's a rhetorical question, but he answers it anyway.

"Yes," he hums, glaring at her huddled form on the floor in the corner of the cell farthest from him. "But don't do it just to please me. I know you, Katara. You're not this weak. You are far from your lowest point." In a flowing movement that reminds him of the water that was always in her touch, her caress, she flies toward him and grips the cell bars, revealing bruised knuckles. He lets his fingertips fly gently over them as she closes her eyes and releases a moan of ecstasy.

He will not lie. He is addicted. Addicted to her.

But then she opens her eyes to stare him down, daggers in her gaze.
"I that what you want?" she asks, pressing herself against the bars on her side as he does the same on his. Their lips are almost touching, almost. "To bring me to the point of no return?"

He smiles against her mouth.

"Do you think I could?"

She reaches two fingers through the gap between the bars and strokes his face lightly, as fleetingly as a soft breeze. Her dry, cracked lips, smudged forehead and strands of greasy hair appeal to him more than the angular cheekbones and creamy, clear skin of any woman in the fire nation.

"I once thought you could do anything you wanted to," she whispers. He finds it hard to speak.

"And now?" he breathes hoarsely.

She turns and takes a few steps away from the bars, until she is half-concealed by shadows. He feels her absence like a cold wind, strong enough to kill a small, vulnerable flame.

"Now you're not even strong enough to let me out, to speak to me without prison bars between us."

He leans his head to one side and lets his eyes graze the slope of her back.

"Do you think me weak?" he asks. Wants to ask. Does not dare to ask.

"You know that he will come, don't you?" she says, spinning around to face him. Fierce hope blazes inside her eyes. He feels a trickle of cold sweat run down his back.

"To rescue you? Maybe," he answers slowly. "But once he finds out what you have done, how you have played him for a fool, you will be lost."

"What makes you think I played him for a fool?" she asks, quivering with fury.

"What are you saying? That you were in love with both of us? That you played me for a fool instead? Please, Katara. Please." He meant it to sound sarcastic, but he realizes that he really is pleading with her. She couldn't have been pretending all that time. She couldn't have.

She sinks to her knees; the sudden rush of energy is over, leaving only her dried out, famished, vulnerable shell.

"Love," she whispers, so quietly that he barely hears her. "Love is a fool's game, though, isn't it? We are all fools, the two, three, four, millions of us."

He has never heard her speak this way.

It scares him half to death.

She loops her arms around her knees and rocks back and forth on the floor. He cannot pull his eyes away, and finally, she raises her head to meet them.

"Do you know how to kill a Fire Lord?" she asks. He feels tears rolling down his face. He has not cried in years. It frightens him.

He shakes his head. He wants to know. He has forgotten.

Stop Music

"With love."

I very much hope that this was enjoyable for you. And even if you didn't like the music this time, that really doesn't say anything about the soundtrack in general, because my taste in music is always changing. Who knows, you might like it next chapter. I'm just saying.

Feel free to comment on any part of the chapter – my writing, the plot (as far as that can be discerned from my first few words), anything. I want to hear your opinions. Believe it or not, they are very important to me!

Love,

Type

P.S. Let me just say that this was just the prologue, so of course it's going to be shorter that the actual chapters. I usually write about 3000 words per chapter, but this story is very different from everything else I've written, so yeah. I'll surprise myself as much as you.