Chapter Two
As they traveled through the rest of the day, Katara started inconspicuously checking her ability to move. Slowly but steadily, she regained control of her body. She was careful, however, to remain limp and so to hopefully keep her captors off their guard. Ty Lee's mongoose dragon was the last in line, so there was no one behind Katara to see her movements if they were well hidden by the bulk of the giant reptile she was laid across. She carefully began to repeatedly clench one hand dangling next to the mongoose dragon's tail, which she knew was hidden from Ty Lee's view. She did not want to be stiff when the fighting began.
Not that she wanted to fight, but these three girls were too strong to let her escape easily. She hoped that she could turn their own plan back on them, that they would split up for some reason and she could take on fairer battles one at a time.
The sky, barely visible through the dense trees, had long ago darkened before Azula ordered a stop for the night. Katara's heartbeat quickened, and she made sure to stay limp as Ty Lee vaulted off her mongoose dragon and came around to where Katara was tied. She loosened her ropes, fingers a blur, but didn't bother to catch Katara, who fell heavily to the damp ground.
"Oh!" Ty Lee exclaimed, looking down at her in puzzlement. "Your chi can't still be blocked! You can get up."
Azula took a more direct approach. She kicked Katara in the side, and the waterbender curled up reflexively. "There, you see," snarled the fire princess, "you're moving already. Now get up and help set up camp."
There really was no choice. Katara pushed herself shakily to her feet and over to where Mai knelt with a canvas tent halfway erected. As Mai rose and stretched the tent fully upright, Katara caught a glimpse of dagger sheaths on her ankles - and she knew Mai probably had more weapons on her at all times. Katara didn't know which of her three captors was most dangerous; her eyes flicked back and forth, considering. Mai had knives, of course, but Katara could try to block them with ice. Azula had her firebending, and she was ruthless. The look in her eyes scared Katara; some of the things Zuko had told her, as well as Katara's previous experiences, led to a nervous feeling about the princess's sanity. Ty Lee, though, was fast and agile, and her chi blocking was totally disabling. She could run with a knife in her back, thought Katara firmly, or with burn scars, but if Ty Lee got ahold of her she was doomed.
Mai's dark monotone came from behind her. "I don't know what you're thinking, but I can guess." Her golden eyes, as Katara glanced back to her, were steeled and piercing. "If you try to run, you won't get far. There's no way you can beat us without help, and none of your friends are here to give it."
Katara refused to answer. She reinforced her determined frown and looked pointedly away from Mai. Ty Lee was gone. Katara blinked - where did she go? Her stealthiness was dangerous. Azula lazed against a tree. "You're not helping, waterbender," she said liltingly.
"Neither are you," Katara shot back. Her temper was flaring. She was scared and sore, but most of all she was angry. At her words, it was as though even the birds stopped their singing. Azula's face looked as though she had been slapped. Then a slow grin spread across her face, sending a chill down Katara's spine. But she refused to look away. She stared into the slightly demented yellow eyes of Zuko's sister until her surroundings faded away, waiting to see what would happen next.
The tension was interrupted by Ty Lee's return. She swooped down from the treetops with an armful of branches. Setting most of them in front of the mongoose dragons, she reserved a few and had a fire going in no time. Beaming, she jumped up again and did a handspring on the way to her saddle pack. She pulled out a large bag and, returning to the fire, began to pull out food.
Mai used her knives to kill some kind of small rodent with a row of feathers down its back, and Katara was ordered to pluck and skin it. She did so easily, butchering the carcass into pieces small enough to be quickly roasted over Ty Lee's fire. She couldn't stop wondering at her situation. Why weren't her hands bound? And why were they allowing her to use a knife to prepare this meat? It couldn't be that they trusted her; she was their prisoner. And so that left only one possible explanation. They didn't see her as a threat. Katara felt her already high temper start to rise again. She would show them just how much of a threat she could be.
As she placed the last cut of meat onto the fire to cook, she felt a searing pain at the back of her neck. She gave a sort of choked-off gasp, clapping her hand to the site of the pain and spinning around. Azula stood above her, smiling widely, with white-blue fire playing around the tips of her fingers. She made another pinching motion, and Katara reeled back. She stared at Azula with pure hatred in her eyes. The princess didn't know it, but she was just feeding the fire that would fuel Katara's escape.
