Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.
Notes: There were concerns mentioned that Katara had become a blooded warrior by the age of ten or some such. Allow me to clarify. Katara is about seven when her mother is killed. At least in my personal timeline. Immediately they move north. Over the next eleven years the war goes on. Katara joins the boys on the front lines around age fifteen and had been fighting for the next three-ish years. This presumes that Ursa didn't murder her father-in-law, so he lived for another ten years. Iroh has only recently come to the throne. I hope this clarifies any issues people may have with Katara's age when she became the so-called White Terror.
Katara sat behind her best friend and sometime mistress and sometime charge, helping her get her hair into order. "I just can't believe that they're making you marry some prince in the Fire Nation that you've never even met," she said. "It's terrible."
Yue shrugged a little. "At least it's not Hahn," she said with a sigh. "I can only hope he's better than Hahn."
"If the whole peace weren't riding on this, I'd've gone through with helping you and Sokka run away, you know," Katara told her. With a final pat the last locks were put in place and she sat down next to her friend.
In spite of the fact that they were both depressed about the upcoming meeting and eventual wedding, Yue managed a smile. "It was a great plan," she said. "I wanted to see the penguins." She put a hand on Katara's shoulder. "At least now you can put the war behind you."
Shouts from above and the change in the boat's motion told them both that they'd pulled up to the docks and had better get on deck to greet the royal family of the Fire Nation. The two young women, aged eighteen and twenty respectively, made their way to the deck. Outside, the water was a strange and vibrant shade of blue the likes of which neither had ever seen before, while the city, so different from the northern polar city they'd grown up in, was a dazzling array of green foliage, brown earth, red and black flags and roofs, white walls and blue skies. All this was interspersed with flashes of the metal the Fire Nation was so well known for its prowess in making.
Waiting for them on the dock was an older man with grey hair, an older woman with black hair beginning to be streaked with white, and two younger men, one clearly older than the other. Lastly was a bored-looking girl. All of them were dressed in very formal red and black clothing, designed with the imperial dragons and fluttering in the warm breeze.
Katara's eye was drawn, however, to the youngest man there, who had a strangely shaped facial scar. As they got closer, she realised what it was. Someone had burned the young man, causing almost half his face to be covered in red scar tissue. She wrenched her attention back to her surroundings. She was here to be Yue's maid, her friend, and to protect her to the death if need be. The whole point about having a young woman as the princess' bodyguard was that no one would ever expect it, which gave them an advantage over any assassins.
Arnook stepped forward and bowed, saying, "Fire Lord Iroh, I present to you my daughter, Princess Yue." Yue took her cue and bowed to the Fire Lord.
The Fire Lord stepped forward as well, and began his own introductions. "First I present to you Princess Ursa, my brother's widow and mother to Prince Zuko and Princess Azula." The scarred man and the bored woman both bowed. "And your daughter's betrothed, my son, Prince Lu Ten." At that, the older of the two young men bowed. Katara looked him up and down critically. At least he seemed not to have the eternal sense of smug superiority that Hahn had. It was something.
Prince Lu Ten stepped forward, holding out his arm to Yue, and said, "Join me your highness? We should probably become better acquainted." Yue, looking serene as she always did in any situation that made her nervous, put her hand on his arm and let him begin to lead her to a carriage pulled by several matched ostrich horses. Katara followed, but found her way barred as Princess Ursa climbed in after and two guards prevented anyone else from joining them.
"Who is this?" the Fire Lord inquired. Katara turned, putting everything she had into imitating her friend's bearing. The man had a genial smile, but his eyes were sharp, and Katara deliberately tried to relax herself.
The chief glared. "This is the Princess's ladies' maid. It is my wish that she should remain with my daughter." As if he suddenly realised what he was saying, Arnook added, "For the sake of propriety."
"You believe that my sister-in-law is not capable of maintaining propriety?" the Fire Lord asked mildly.
Caught between insulting the Fire Lord an jeopardising the whole affair, and telling the man the truth, which would completely undo the point of Katara's camouflage as a ladies' maid, Arnook stumbled over his words, apologised, then ordered Katara to follow the baggage up to the palace. After all, the warriors accompanying them had already taken one wagon and left, leaving Katara with no other way up to the palace.
Naturally, there was no room anywhere for her to sit, and Katara plonked down on top of one of the chests holding the warm-weather clothes they'd made specifically for Yue's move from the cold climate of the poles to the Fire Nation's tropical temperatures.
Meanwhile, Arnook and the Fire Lord both climbed into a carriage to head to the palace, while Katara was left in the scorching sun to watch Prince Zuko and Princess Azula have a quiet argument that ended in him storming off.
As any good waterbender should, Katara had a waterskin with her, and in moments had soaked a handkerchief, frozen it solid, and placed it on her forehead to try to cool down. "Waterbender, are you?" came a female voice from a little below.
Katara sat up, looked down, and saw Princess Azula giving her a contemplative look. She hastily slid off the cart and into a formal bow. "Can I help you with something, Princess?"
When she looked up, a small smile was playing on the young woman's face. "You are a waterbender, are you not?"
"Yes," Katara said. Then hastily added, "Your highness."
"Maybe, if Princess Yue lets you out we could spar sometime," the princess suggested.
For a flash, a moment, Katara was going to say yes. She wanted to let loose and stop pretending to be demure and ladylike. But she couldn't. "Women are not trained in the combat forms of waterbending," she said evasively.
The princess' face immediately lost all interest. "That's a pity," she said.
As she walked away, Katara frowned. What the princess said implied that she had trained in combative bending, but that didn't make sense. While the Fire Nation had sent women to the front lines, it had been presumed among the tribes that they were doing so due to a limit on capable warriors available. After all, world conquest needs a lot of people to both take over and then hold territory. Perhaps the princess had used her rank to bully someone into teaching her.
Katara shrugged. It wasn't her problem. She turned around and discovered that the brief conversation she'd had, and the following moment of thought, had lost her the ride up to the palace. The wagon had gone without her on it. She was going to have to make her way there on foot. Muttering imprecations about everyone, Katara stomped off, heading uphill. At least she could see where the palace was.
Eventually however, she found herself tired, dusty, a little lost and feeling like she was getting no closer to the palace complex she could see at the top of the city than she'd been before. That was when she spotted a somewhat-familiar face. "Prince Zuko?"
Zuko was doing what he usually did once he'd been set free from his firebending training. Wandering the city aimlessly. With nothing to do, he was usually restless and bored, and the city streets at least had things to look at. He'd made a point of keeping away from people in formal situations, so it wasn't well known what the other prince looked like.
The other prince. That was why he hated being at the palace. He loved his family. His mother was wonderful, Lu Ten had never made him feel like the tagalong younger cousin, his uncle made as much time for him as was reasonable for a national leader with an heir to raise and Azula was getting better all the time with their mother's help.
But that was just the problem, wasn't it? Lu Ten was being groomed to be the next Fire Lord. Iroh's time was all devoted to being the Fire Lord and training his son to take the throne. His sister was still . . . well, she was still Azula, and their mother had her hands full with her, getting her to point her talented firebending and ambition in reasonable directions.
It all left Zuko the choice of having people point and stare at the prince with the scar on his face, muttering in pity, or hiding away. So, he would keep his firebending up to par and then head into the city where he was just another Fire Nation man who'd had an accident while learning bending.
And now this Water Tribe chit was going to ruin it all. He was across the space between them in seconds, telling her, "Be quiet."
She frowned. "Why?"
"I don't want . . ." he trailed off, looking for something to say that made sense.
Oddly, her face suddenly turned compassionate. "You want to be like everyone else for a while?" she asked.
She was right, but the pity on her face to too insulting. "Maybe I just want some peace and quiet," he snapped.
The girl raised an eyebrow at the market, filled with people hawking their wares in loud voices, the clatter of wagons over cobblestones, the cries of animals making a cacophony of lowing, cawing, cackling, bleating, squawking and grunting. The shrieks of children playing rang over it all, and Zuko flushed. "Why aren't you at the palace?" he asked, to take the focus off himself.
With that, she seemed to crumple. "I was supposed to be with Yue, acting as her maid and chaperone, but Princess Ursa was sitting with her and Prince Lu Ten, so I wasn't allowed into the carriage. Then I was told to take the wagon with the luggage on it, since there wasn't any transportation arranged for me. When Princess Azula asked me about sparring with her, the wagon left without me and I've been walking up to the palace." She looked irate, and Zuko couldn't blame her.
"Wasn't there room for you with the other maids?" he asked.
She blinked at him. "What other maids?"
"Doesn't Princess Yue have any other maids with her?" he inquired. "Servants? You could have ridden up with Chief Arnook's entourage."
Shaking her head, the girl said, "There's no entourage, your . . . there's no entourage."
"Call me Zuko," he said. He didn't know where the impulse came from, but she needed his permission to call him by name, and he'd already told her he didn't want to be outed as a prince. It was only fair. That brought up a question, however. "What's your name?"
"Katara," she said, bowing slightly. "Katara of the Southern Water Tribe."
It was his turn to blink. "Southern Water Tribe? I thought the Southern Tribe had been killed off by . . ." he trailed off, realising that finishing that sentence wouldn't do the peace talks any good.
The girl, Katara, was shaking her head. "We went North. After the attack to find and kill me, we left. For protection."
"To kill you?" He hadn't even been aware that they had started walking, but they were out of the market and wending their way slowly through the homes of the upper middle classes. "Why would we have sent troops to kill you, specifically?"
She smiled sadly at him. "You're looking at the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe."
There was nothing to say to that, so Zuko stayed silent. He realised he was leading her to the palace, cutting his afternoon out short, but she was the first person in a very long time to talk to him without treating him like some kind of strange animal and he liked it. Besides which, she wouldn't have gotten into the palace through the gates without someone identifying her. They quietly walked together, heading up to the palace.
After a moment or two of silence, however, Zuko realised he still didn't know, "Why aren't there more servants with you? Chief Arnook should have someone to assist with dressing and . . ." he trailed off at the look of bafflement on her face. "What?"
"If Arnook needed help with dressing himself, he wouldn't be chief," she told him bluntly. "Servants are for serving food, but to have a personal servant like a maid, for a man?" she shook her head. "He might as well just tell people he's weak and effeminate. Only a princess like Yue needs a maid." Then she stared at him. "Are you saying you have a . . . a maid?"
Feeling both amused and affronted, Zuko told her, "A valet. He helps me with putting on my formal robes and keeping my affairs in order."
"How much help do you need with a shirt and pants?" she asked, sounding utterly baffled.
Suddenly curious about the topic of clothes, a first for him really, Zuko asked back, "Is that all your formal clothing is?" Then he realised, "Wait, does this mean that you're the only servant travelling with the Princess and Chief?"
Katara nodded. "The others travelling with us are warriors of the Tribe. Chief Arnook wants to show the strength of the tribe, I suppose."
"Did he bring the White Terror with him?" Zuko asked eagerly.
"The what?" Katara asked, looking rather blank at the question.
"You know," he began.
She interrupted. "No, I don't know."
Exasperated, Zuko told her, "The White Terror. The waterbender that singlehandedly destroyed the Eighth."
Katara frowned in concentration, then said, "Was that the one with the ships that were flying an Unagi flag?"
"Yes," Zuko said. "Who is he?"
The maid looked deeply uncomfortable and told him, "If Chief Arnook wants to tell people who that is, he will. I'm not going to say anything without his consent."
It suddenly occurred to Zuko that he was asking for what might well be top military secrets of her nation. "Sorry," he said sincerely. "It's just that whoever the White Terror is must be the greatest bender in the tribes to be able to down a whole fleet."
"First," she said in annoyance, "It wasn't a whole fleet, it was two ships. The other fighters had dealt with the fleet. Second, one of them was stopped right between two icebergs, and it w . . . would have been child's play to hold the ship in place for the warriors to take it. Third," she said, "The last ship had an actual map of the water conduits running through the whole ship. All it took was bursting all the pipes at once to sink it."
"You know him!" Zuko accused.
Katara stared at him, startled. "What?"
"You know him. Personally," Zuko said. "Did he give you any training in bending?" He was so eager
"Women are not warriors," she snapped, looking quite strained.
That was just . . . "What?"
She sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just that . . ." she trailed off, seeming to search for something to say.
They had reached the palace walls, and Zuko realised that he was going to have to get his hair back into its topknot and his crown in place before they went through the main gates. He could have taken her in the back way, but it would be best if the palace guards knew who she was and that she had the right to move in and out of the palace on her own. So he dropped the topic and said, "Just a minute. I need to get my topknot back and my crown on before we go in."
The maid stopped, giving him a look that was clearly grateful for his dropping it, and waited as he struggled and cursed, trying to pull his hair back smoothly and get everything centred properly. This was part of why he liked sneaking out. He didn't have to have everything back in place by the time he got to the gates, he could just ask his valet or a dresser to fix it for him. After he'd cursed one too many times, she giggled, and said, "Does your highness need assistance?"
Before he could say anything either way, she'd whipped a comb out of some hidden pocket or other, and had his unruly mop tamed and smoothly bound up in the knot he'd wanted. She held out a hand to him, and it took Zuko a moment to realise she was waiting for him to put the crown in her hand.
Technically, no one but the royal family and certain elite servants were supposed to ever touch the royal crown. He hesitated. But he'd never get it in straight himself, no matter how often he tried he just couldn't land it in the middle, and she was right there. Telling himself that she was in the same position as those few elite servants, only in a different nation, Zuko handed it to her and felt it slide into place. "Thank you," he said, turning around only to find himself nose-to-nose with her.
Her eyes were a stunning shade of blue that reminded him of the waters around Ember Island.
They both took a sudden step backwards away from each other. "Thank you for getting me to the palace," she replied.
In the suddenly awkward silence, Zuko took her to the gates, introduced her to the guards, letting them know she was to have the same rights as any of the other upper-level servants in the palace, then pointed her towards the wing where Princess Yue was supposed to reside until she and Lu Ten were married. Then they parted ways.