Title: Bend
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Type: Multi-chaptered
Rating: PG
Pairings: Zuko/Katara
Word count: 2,247
Summary: During the Seige of the North, Katara pursues Zuko from the oasis rather than staying with her friends.

Disclaimer: I do not own this series, nor am I making any money from this story.

A/N: Many thanks to Tory for help with dialogue.

Chapter 1

Even during the first day at sea, Katara had concluded that travelling with the two firebenders might not be so bad. Uncle Iroh had used his firebending to suspend a small fire slightly above the surface of the raft. Grateful, Katara had warmed herself and began to dry her drenched clothes. On the other side of the raft, Zuko was doing the same for himself. Perhaps this journey would work out after all. Besides, Sokka and Aang were bound to come looking for her. She'd see Appa's familiar form somewhere on the horizon any minute now.

"Leave it to the Water Nation to leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere. If it weren't for your magical water whatever that thing was, we wouldn't be living like penguins right now! And that creature counts as cheating, anyway."

Or maybe she was trying desperately to look on the bright side.

"Well if your Fire Nation wasn't so bent on destroying other civilizations, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place! Why is your Fire Lord doing this anyway? To rule the whole world, gain unlimited power? That is so, so… cliché!" she snapped, and stamped her boot-clad foot on the raft.

A second later, Katara found herself dangling by the collar of her parka over the freezing water.

"You have no right to speak about the Fire Lord like that! Give me one reason why I shouldn't just toss you off our raft!" he shouted furiously as he held her at arms length above the water.

Somehow, attempting to fight didn't seem like a great option while suspended above icy water, and when the only moderately solid object she could see for miles was a soggy bunch of planks, which would likely not take well to any fighting. She chose to appeal to whatever reason might reside in the unstable prince instead.

"Well, you see…" she began hesitantly, "I am a waterbender. So I can catch fish, and make drinking water…"

Zuko's face hadn't changed.

"… and since water is all there is out here, and you seem to be missing an army of servants to tend to your every whim, it might possibly be a good idea to keep around the one person who hasn't been pampered all their life and knows a thing or two about living in the arctic."

Still definitely not impressed.

"But by all means, go ahead. Don't let me stop you from throwing your one chance at survival overboard, your highness."

She was pretty sure she was going to get dumped in the water any minute now.

"Actually, I think it would be very beneficial to have Katara onboard our little ship," piped in Uncle Iroh from his place on the other side of the raft. He was still lounging and looked half-asleep.

Zuko glanced away from Katara to look, with extreme doubt, at his uncle for a moment.

"What is it Uncle? You think she might actually be useful?"

"Why yes."

Katara held her breathe in anticipation.

"You see, along with my bass and your tenor, the addition of her alto voice would provide for a rather nice singing troop. And how else will we pass the time before we're rescued?"

He made a slightly stifled, murderous noise, and Katara could feel Zuko shake with frustration as he closed his eyes and valiantly fought off the urge to burn the ship and all of its passengers to a crisp. He turned suddenly and chucked her unceremoniously back onto the wooden planks, before stomping all of four steps to a corner of the raft and sitting with his arms and legs crossed. Katara wasn't quite sure what to do at this point, but was fairly certain that sticking her tongue out at the Prince of Arrogant Jerks was not the right action. Tempting, but below her.

So she did it anyway, just in time for Zuko to open his good eye to glance at her with a classic glare, which Katara had a sinking feeling that she would be seeing a lot more of.

"You do that again and I'll burn your tongue out of your mouth."

She returned the glare as he closed his eye again and looked as irate as ever. She smiled cautiously at Iroh, who appeared to have already gone back to sleep, and then opted for rolling onto her back and watching the clouds. Putting her hands behind her head, she prepared for another few hours of strained silence, before drifting off to sleep with worried thoughts about the state of her brother and Aang.

She awoke a few hours later to the grumbling of her stomach.

With a hand to her rumbling stomach, Katara noticed that Zuko and Iroh had hardly moved. In his sleep, whether feigned or real, Iroh made small noises of hunger and rubbed his belly absentmindedly. Zuko, eyes closed, had his usual grumpy expression on his face as he meditated.

Katara scowled. It appeared that she was going to have to depend on herself for food.

Steadying herself on the edge of the raft, Katara tried to look into the dark water. Having lived in the Antarctic for most of her life, she certainly knew a thing or two about finding food in the ocean.

Unfortunately this was a bit different. First of all, there were no birds or mammals in sight. Any member of the Southern Water Tribe knew that animals were the key to finding food. Equipped with better instincts than humans, they would find fish for you. All a Water Tribe member had to do was set up nets opposite to the hunting ground of penguins or whatever else, and as they fled from their natural predators, the fish would bring themselves right into the nets. This was the main method that Katara knew, and the one that she had practiced most often.

This place was also too unknown to dive into and she was lacking a fishing spear. Besides, without a warm place and secure shelter for after a hunt, diving for fish would do her more harm than good.

Katara let her mind wander as she stared idly at the ripples around the raft. The light was glinting off the water, but she could still make out a vague form that was her reflection. Familiar brown hair, tanned skin, blue eyes looked back at her from the faint image. Not a lot had changed in the few months since she'd left on her journey. She frowned and poked at her cheekbones. Her face was still not as sharply defined as she would have liked it to be.

In less visible aspects though, Katara recognized how far she had come. Leaving the security of her community had given her experiences she would have otherwise never encountered. Along with a furthered sense of independence, she had new knowledge and appreciation of other cultures. Not the mention being named a waterbending master, she thought as she allowed a small grin to creep onto her face.

"Grrraaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!"

Eyes wide, she hugged her arms to her stomach, hoping that the other two hadn't heard that embarrassingly loud rumble.

It was definitely time to do something about the food situation.

Standing up, she readied herself in a basic waterbending stance, with her arms positioned as though holding a ball in front of her body. Furrowing her brow, closing her eyes, and concentrating deeply, she reached out to sense the water around her.

After a few minutes, she wasn't having much luck.

"Just standing there isn't going to get us any food, you know."

She would not turn around and acknowledge him. Not even react in the slightest. And he was so not getting any of her fish. Whenever it came along.

"Don't tease her, Zuko. She's making an effort."

Unlike a certain someone, she thought.

"How hard can it be to find a few fish in the middle of the ocean?"

She felt Zuko stomp his way across the raft and crouch beside her.

He made a noise of irritation. "This water is too dark to see into."

More stomping, over to the other side this time.

With her eyes still closed, Katara gave up trying to ignore him. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"Moving around like that! You'll scare the fish away. They can hear the vibrations."

He stomped back towards her. Just because he was being a disagreeable brat, she was sure.

"You just know so much don't --"

Her concentration broken, she rounded on him, cutting off his words. "Would you just shut up?"

She really had to learn to control her temper. A little anger made for a lot of powerful waterbending. Especially since she was waving her arms in agitation.

A mass of water sprang from the ocean, drenching the prince. Carried along with it, a small fish struck Zuko in the face before flopping onto the raft.

They all blinked in unison before slowly looking down at the wriggling fish.

As the realization of what had just happened kicked in, Katara's face transformed into an expression of joy. On the other hand, Zuko blushed faintly with embarrassment and tensed with anger.

Uncle Iroh didn't need any particularly keen skills of observation to sense the developing danger in this situation.

He stepped hastily between the two, startling both of them. "What a delicious looking fish! Zuko, I am sure that if you cooked it just right with some firebending it would make quite the meal!" Iroh picked up the fish and placed it in his nephew's hands before turning to Katara. "Well done! If you can find another two like this and make us some water to drink, we'll be well off indeed!" Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her towards the edge of the raft again, a cautious distance from Zuko.

Still beaming with pride from a perfect combination of finding food and humiliating her infuriating shipmate, Katara set to work on locating two more fish.

This time, she removed her thick mittens, immersed her hands in the ocean, and used her bending to let the water find the fish for her. It wasn't long before she handed two more fish for dinner over to the waiting Uncle Iroh. Acting to maintain peace, he carried them over to Zuko, the raft's designated cook.

"The last one's mine!" Katara called over her shoulder, as she carefully altered salt water into drinking water and filled up the flask at her hip. The last fish was the largest. Since she had caught them, why should she not be entitled to it?

Putting her mitts back on, she moved towards the two men at the other side of the raft. Zuko had removed the scales from the fish and was carefully heating the last one, Katara's, on a section of a plank that was slowly turning black. The other two were lying not too far away and looked quite delicious in her starved mind. Katara couldn't help but gloat about her accomplishments as the smell of the cooked fish reached her.

"See your highness, if you'd have thrown me overboard before, you still wouldn't have anything to eat!"

In hindsight, perhaps that had been a bad idea.

As Zuko's temper flared and he looked away from his task, the fish went up in flames.

Crying out in an almost comically horrified way, Katara doused it quickly with water from her flask.

All three of the raft's passengers stared at the still smoking fish.

Katara moved, in shock, to pick up her ruined dinner and the two other fish beside it that were fortunately safe.

"You burned my fish."

"It wasn't much of a fish to begin with."

"That still doesn't make it alright to burn it!"

"It's not that bad. Stop being a baby."

"You. Lit. It. On. Fire."

As they continued to argue and were consumed with glaring at each other, Uncle Iroh deftly plucked the charred fish from Katara's hand and took a bite.

"Delicious!" He declared. "I hear that a dose of charcoal every once in a while can be good for you health."

"That's a lie, and you know it Uncle."

"No, no, really…" He took another bite and munched happily on it. "This fish is excellent! You see, working together accomplishes more than either one of you could have done on your own."

Katara shoved one of the fish she held into Zuko's hands and gave him a furious look. He was still looking at his uncle, and Katara thought he seemed somewhat ashamed. At least he isn't completely lacking a conscience, Katara grumbled in her mind.

That didn't change the fact that her formerly delicious fish was now charred beyond all recognition.

As she took a bite into the fish in front of her, her mood improved. It was smaller than the other one had been, but she was so hungry that it tasted good enough to rival the feast they'd had at the northern Water Tribe's palace.

Zuko had not touched his food, she noticed. He kept glancing awkwardly between his fish and the burned one in his uncle's hands.

Suddenly, he swapped his fish for the burned one and began to eat what was left of it, without a word.

Iroh just smiled, before beginning on his new meal.

They ate the rest of their humble meal in silence, with Zuko's eyes averted almost guiltily towards the raft's planks.