Previously on Superstition:
While searching for food alone one morning, Katara is captured by Admiral Zhao and held captive on his ship. Zhao leaves her basket of food, her hair ribbon and his own knife on the beach as a message for Aang and Sokka, who don't know that she's gone yet.
"Ow!" Katara said as she was literally thrown into her cell. The guard glared at her and locked the door. Katara glared back, hoping he didn't notice how bad she was shaking. After she was sure he was out of sight, Katara let her 'tough face' drop, and she sat on the cold, hard floor trembling.
How could I have let this happen? Katara mentally berated herself. I let Aang down, Sokka down, even Momo and Appa. All I wanted was to get some breakfast for us all, and look where it got me. I'm trapped in a cell on a Fire Navy ship, and I'm probably going to try to torture me into telling where Aang is. But I won't do it! I can't tell them!
Damn, there's not even any water in here! Katara noted angrily. How did they know I was a Waterbender, anyway? Maybe they don't. Maybe they just weren't expecting anyone, so they didn't put water in the cell. Yeah, that sounds right. They weren't expecting to find me or anything. Stupid luck…
Katara looked around her small, dark, and slightly damp cell. There was no source of light save for a small porthole that she would never even have a chance of fitting through. There was a small cot in a corner, and a chamber pot in another corner. Other than that, there was nothing. Katara sighed and hopped onto her cot.
What's going to happen to me now?
Admiral Zhao was in an uncharacteristically good mood.
"Boys, we as good as have the Avatar in our custody," he crowed over a mug of ale, drinking deeply.
"Um, sir, I hate to be the one to bring this up, but we don't have the Avatar. All we have is a little girl!" Protested one of the crew members, making sure to hide himself in a crowd before making this particular comment.
"And that's all we need!" Zhao retorted. "The girl is obviously important to the Avatar. As long as we have her, we don't even need to go looking for him. The Avatar will coming looking for us. Just give it a few days, and we'll have the Avatar locked up in that same holding cell that the girl is in. This plan is foolproof!"
The crew members exchanged wary glances at this last sentence, but picked up their mugs and gave cheers along with their commander officer.
Katara knew it had only been a few hours since she'd been locked—none to gently, either—in this cell, but it felt like days. Time, she noted bitterly, seems to pass by much slower when one has absolutely nothing to do. She tried to stare out her porthole at the ocean, her element, but the window was too high up for her to see out of. This effectively left the cot, the chamber pot, and the floor and walls for entertainment. Not a lot of options.
Katara eventually resorted to singing softly, almost humming. She quickly made her way through every song and tune she knew, and moved on to making up songs. None of them were any good, though, and usually had the words 'damn ship' and 'stupid firebenders' in them somewhere, even if it didn't exactly rhyme with the rest of the lyrics.
She quickly fell silent, however, when she noticed the footsteps coming towards her. She jumped onto her cot and pretended to be asleep. The guard unlocked the door to her cell, and Katara could hear his keys jingling loudly. He thrust the door open, and put the keys back into his pocket.
"Get out here, little girl. Admiral Zhao wants to see you for interrogation."
Katara sat up on the cot and stared fearfully at the guard, hoping for some sympathy. His harsh face suggested otherwise. She quickly got off the cot and followed him out, almost jogging in order to keep up with the man's brisk pace. She felt very short all of a sudden, after being with just her brother and a twelve-year-old for so long.
Katara followed the guard down a first hall, and then another, up a staircase, and down another hall, and she tried her best to remember exactly where she was going on this maze of a ship. She didn't bother with an escape attempt yet—she would have gotten lost and recaptured far too easily for her own liking. So for now, she would follow the guard, and hope that she could endure whatever the Admiral was going to do to her.
The guard opened the door slowly and nodded to Admiral Zhao before glaring at Katara. She took this as her cue to enter the room, and walked in as slowly as she could, taking baby steps. The guard, however, didn't like this plan much, judging by the way he pushed her into the room. Katara fell on her knees, and the door closed behind her.
"Get up," Zhao commanded. Katara obeyed, standing up and staring him straight in the face. She was shaking again, and she hoped against hope that Zhao didn't notice. "Sit," Zhao ordered her again, nodding towards a chair across from himself. Then he turned towards the one remaining soldier in the room, a young man of about twenty years of age with short, dark brown hair. "Leave!" Zhao barked, and the soldier was only too happy to oblige. He, for one, didn't want to see the torture of a child today.
Safely alone with Katara, Zhao placed his hands on his knees and stared deep into Katara's eyes. She met his gaze for as long as she could, but soon she dropped her eyes to the ground. Zhao grinned and reached out, placing two fingers under her chin, tipping her face up so her gaze would meet his. She averted her eyes to the side.
"So, Katara," Zhao said her name as if it were a curse word. "How about you begin by telling me everything you know about the Avatar's current whereabouts?"
Katara said nothing.
"I said, tell me!" Zhao said calmly, slapping her. Katara winced, knowing that now both her cheeks would be swollen and red. But still, she said nothing. "It would be smart to do what I say, Miss Katara. You'll find that this is a lot less painful if you just follow instructions." He slapped her again. Katara's eyes watered painfully, but she remained silent. Zhao stood, and began circling her again, like he had done just hours ago.
"Miss Katara, tell me where the Avatar is heading," he growled. He had expected the girl to break down and tell him everything after just the first slap. "It would be in your best interests, trust me."
SLAP!
"Tell me, dammit!" Zhao yelled, grabbing Katara by her loose hair and pulling her up out of her chair. She gasped in pain and stood up to relieve the pressure. She tried to push him away, but this only seemed to fuel his anger more. Zhao punched her in the stomach, causing Katara to cry out in pain. Her eyes, already watering, released their tears as Zhao released his hold on her hair. She almost fell to the floor, but caught herself and backed up away from Zhao. He hit her again, and Katara could just feel her ribs bruising.
"Stop it!" Katara yelled, speaking for the first time in their interrogation session. "Stop!"
"Tell me where the Avatar is," Zhao growled, hitting her again and again. Katara found herself backed up against a wall, with nowhere left to go. "Tell me!"
Impulsively, Katara struck out with one hand, connecting her fist to Zhao's right eye socket. The Admiral stepped back, stunned for a moment. Katara noticed his eye turning a bit blue, and realized with more than just a little bit of satisfaction that he would probably have a black eye soon. Then Zhao shocked himself out of his stupor, his animal-like aggression taking over, and he hit Katara, much harder than before. Katara felt all the breath in her body leave her, and as he hit her again, she knew that this man could easily kill her.
Suddenly the punches ceased, and Katara found two strong, large hands tightening around her neck. The squeezed gently at first, then harder, making it more and more difficult to breathe. She clawed at his hands with her own, but to no avail. It hurt, and his hands felt so rough against the soft skin of her neck, and she could feel his fingers and nails digging into her skin, and her heartbeat began to race, and her vision began to fade and can't breathe can't breathe can'tbreathcan'tbreathecan'tbreathe—
A loud knock on the door surprised Zhao and loosened his grip on her neck. Katara fell to the floor, gasping and holding her throat. She thought she was going to pass out, and only heard bits and pieces of what the same brown-haired soldier from before was saying.
"…ship has arrived like you requested, sir," the young man told Zhao. "His ship… right next to ours... should be on board in a matter of minutes, sir."
"Thank you, young man. Please take our…guest back down to her cell." Zhao turned to face a heavily-breathing Katara on the floor. "We'll continue this little discussion later, won't we, Miss Katara?" Then he exited the room, strolling down the hall to go gloat to Prince Zuko, whose ship was stationed right next to his own at the very moment, about how he had captured the Avatar's girlfriend, and thus, the Avatar himself.
He did, however, have to pause shortly by a water basin to wash Katara's blood off his hands.
The young brown-haired man closed the door politely behind Admiral Zhao, and stared with pity at the young girl in front of him. She couldn't have been over the age of 15, by the looks of her. She sat against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She was a mess; her whole face was bloody, and blood seeped from a wound underneath her clothes. He made a mental note to take a basin of water and a rag to her once she was safely locked in her cell, so she could clean herself up. He walked slowly over towards her, trying not to scare her. He made a move to help her up, and that was when Katara struck.
The last thing that the young soldier could remember clearly when he woke up was a swift yet horribly painful kick to his groin. After that, he said, everything was a blur. While he was on his knees, Katara had repeated hit his temples and the back of his neck with her fists, hoping to knock him out. It took a few tries, but Katara suspected that it would be in her best interests to learn how to knock someone out with a chop to the back of the neck with only one chop, not twenty. She whispered a quick "sorry" into the unconscious man's ear as she did her best to drag him behind the blind side of the door, so if someone opened it, they wouldn't see the soldier.
Katara took a quick peek out the door before stepping outside and sprinting—or at least, moving as fast as her damaged body could go—towards the end of the hall. It would, she decided, be a miracle if she made it to the other ship without getting caught. She ran around in what felt like circles for at least ten minutes before she saw people. She quickly hid behind the corner of a wall, and peeked around the corner to see what they were doing. They appeared to be exchanging goods between Zuko and Zhao's ships, food and ale from the looks of it. There was a plank connecting the two ships, and a wide opening in the side of each ship allowed the crew to pass between them. Katara sat there for a moment, wondering what she was going to do, when suddenly a horn began to blare.
The crewmembers dropped their crates and kegs and ran up the nearest stairs on Zhao's ship, which was, fortunately for Katara, in the opposite direction. Convinced that everyone was gone, Katara scurried over towards the plank and quickly crossed it, not even bothering to look at what was going on. She ran onto the other ship, and found a dusty pile of crates to hide behind. Now all she had to do was wait. It wasn't too long before she fell asleep, and dreamed of being back at the camp with Sokka and Aang.
Anything has to be better than being on Zhao's ship, Katara thought to herself as she fell asleep. What do I have to lose?
Horns blared as Prince Zuko stood on the bow of Admiral Zhao's ship. It was a formality, really, since Zuko had been banished, but the Admiral had really wanted to rub it in Zuko's face today that he had caught the Avatar, not Zuko.
Behind his emotionless mask, Zuko was thinking about how someone should have taught the Admiral about not counting your chickens before they hatch.
Later, as Zhao recounted the day's events to Prince Zuko and General Iroh in the meditation room over a cup of tea, Iroh was thinking the same thing.
"And what of the young prisoner?" Iroh asked politely, sipping his tea. "Have you questioned it yet?"
"Yes," Zhao answered gruffly, obviously not wanting to talk about this subject. He wanted to gloat more about the Avatar.
"And what did the prisoner reveal?" Prince Zuko asked.
"Nothing," Zhao muttered. "Absolutely nothing, even with torture."
"Torture?" Iroh asked, eyebrows raised. "You tortured the child even though you were sure the Avatar would come for it? For what purpose?"
"To see if it had any useful information, of course," Zhao said.
"Useful information?" Iroh scoffed. "If the Avatar is supposed to be 'as good as in your hands', then why did you feel the need to torture the prisoner for information when the Avatar himself will be here tomorrow? If what you say is true, anyway," he added. "And I suppose that black eye of yours came from your little interrogation session, as well? That kid must be pretty feisty, eh?" The smallest of smiles played on Iroh's lips as he asked the question.
"I don't think that this matter is any of your business, is it, General Iroh?" Zhao said coldly, ending discussion. "It's getting dark, so you should probably get back to your ship, Prince Zuko, General Iroh." The two men got the message loud and clear: you've overextended your welcome, now leave. Neither of them could have been happier to get away from the Admiral.
It would be hours before anyone found the unconscious brown-haired man behind the door in the interrogation room, and even longer before anyone realized that their prisoner was missing. A search began, but no one could seem to find the girl. Finally, they assumed that the girl had jumped off the ship and tried to swim to shore. Surely, she'd be dead by now, since they couldn't even see the mainland anymore—but not as dead as they were sure they were going to be after they told the Admiral.