AN: Thanks so very, very much to everyone who has reviewed so far. I'm deeply grateful to you for taking those special minutes to make me feel like I did a good thing. Also, I'm sorry this chapter took a while - I was traveling a bit and lost my groove. But it's back, now. My groove, I mean...
Katara woke up the next morning when the sun rose hotly and began casting glowing beams across her coverlet. She let her eyes slit open just enough to acknowledge how bright it was, groaned, and then tugged the blanket higher and burrowed into the secure darkness beneath. Her dreams swallowed her.
It was the way they moved; lithe, quick, as if they were exempt from the natural laws binding everything else to the ground. She watched the five acrobats twist and flip, their exposed white flesh gleaming in the low light, just as she remembered it. The muscles in their arms and bellies bunched and twitched, their yellow eyes gleamed.
Sitting in the stands, Katara crossed her legs. Her sex clenched, sending a shiver of sensation through her. The tumblers leaped higher, faster. Despite their constant movement, Katara could feel their yellow eyes on her, as if she was the one putting on the show. Again, her inner muscles clenched and she closed her eyes, tilted her head back in a moment of wantonness. When she looked back, the tumblers were all wearing blue masks.
The next time she awoke, the sun had risen too high to cast light through the window. She sat up abruptly, realizing she had slept half the day away. Why had her friends let her sleep so long? Then, she remembered the scene of the night before. Oh.
Katara flopped back into the pillows - which pleasantly puffed out under her weight - and stared up at the ceiling. It was just as well, she supposed. Breakfast would have been awkward, anyway.
She rolled over and took some deep breaths, stretching her rib cage and then relaxing into the softness. Her eyes closed and she considered going back to sleep for a moment, but the heat of her dream had lingered and she found herself irreversibly awake. She shoved the blanket aside and laid under just the sheet and, as she squirmed in her bedding, her thighs rubbed together pleasantly. Her inner muscles clenched. She began gliding a slow hand down her belly.
"Katara? Are you awake? I brought you some lunch…"
As Suki entered the room, Katara stilled and feigned sleepiness. It was an easy act – she'd had lots of practice concealing her little indulgences in the close quarters back home – but it was still embarrassing to be caught and a blush heated her face. She let out a very real groan of annoyance and pulled the sheet over her head before Suki could spot her red cheeks.
"Come on, Katara. I know you had a rough night, but you've been sleeping for almost twelve hours, now." Under the cajoling, the waterbender could hear the sound of a tray being placed on her night table. "It's fish soup and some kind of really good fruit salad… Jasmine tea… Yum yum, right? Don't you want to come out?"
Katara lifted the sheet back far enough to peer with one eye at the Kyoshi warrior.
"No nuts?"
Suki grinned. "Well, the kiwi-berries look like nuts, but they're technically fruit."
"I guess I have no excuse, then…" Katara heaved herself upright and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The instant she looked up again, Suki was planting the tray over her lap.
"I almost had to nerve-pinch the cook who put this meal together to get her to let me bring it to you. Everyone here is very committed to doing their assigned work... It's almost creepy." Suki filled the porcelain cup with tea from a small pot. The warm scent of Jasmine filled the air as steam twirled lazily upwards.
Katara picked up the cup and held it close to her lips without drinking. "Wow, Suki… Thanks for braving all that peril for me…"
"That's what friends and future-sisters-in-law are for. Also-" Suki sat down on the edge of Katara's bed. "-we gossip. The reason that all the servants are so hard working, or so I've overheard, is that Zuko has been firing anyone caught slacking off."
The waterbender swallowed some tea and then snickered. "Sounds like Zuko alright… all manic determination and high expectations…"
"I think it's starting to wear on him. He looks exhausted."
Katara set down her nearly-empty cup. "You mean you saw him?"
Suki grinned. "For a second. He was at both meals. Ate like a soldier and bolted back to his office. I don't think he takes breaks. More tea?" Before Katara could answer, Suki had refilled her cup.
"Thanks…" Katara took a long moment to select some kind of pale purple melon from the fruit salad, then locked eyes on the other woman. "You're making me feel really special here, Suki… Does that mean everyone else is mad at me or something?"
"Or something…" Suki turned away and stared towards the door, thoughtfully. Katara watched her for a second, considered pressing the subject, and abandoned that thought for the fruit salad – which actually was very good.
After a little while, Suki spoke. "Nobody meant for you to feel excluded, you know… it's nobody's fault. None of us even really realized that you were the odd one out until we were getting ready to leave the carnival. We've all changed since last year, you know? I guess we're still kind of learning how to be a group again." She peered at Katara, who was staring fixedly at her food. "Are you okay?"
The waterbender didn't look up. "I don't know. You're right, though – about everyone changing in their own ways and the group being disjointed because of that." She pushed the last kiwi-berry around the bottom of her bowl. "I'm not really mad … but I do need a little time to get used to… things being different. I think I need to be on my own for a little while. Walk the grounds or something." Aang's woeful face popped up in her mind. She looked at Suki to drive it away.
"Of course!" Suki nodded, her expression sympathetic. "There are a lot of beautiful gardens to see here. Will you at least come and have dinner with us?"
Katara allowed herself a smile. "Of course. How could I miss seeing one of the Fire Lord's rare appearances?"
True to intention, Katara went directly from dressing in her traditional blues to exploring the grounds around the palace. Most of the plants were lush and some were still blooming, but the heat of summer had taken its toll and, inevitably, there were many yellow leaves and shattered flowers.
She sat on a stone near a small pond and watched the turtle-ducks dive and splash for a long while. The sound of a stick breaking some distance away made her whirl to her feet and fall immediately into a bending posture.
It was only a guard, though, standing like an armored pillar beneath a peach-apple tree. Feeling a bit sheepish, Katara waved (he did not respond) and sat back down on the stone. The peace was broken, though, and memories of the previous night's attack flashed in her head, heightening her sense of ill-ease.
Eventually, she rose and strolled along a stone path that wound through the garden and then around a corner of the palace. Behind her, she could hear the distant sounds of the guard tailing her. Her expression darkened. Was it too much to ask that she be allowed to wallow in her misery alone?
Teeth gritted, Katara walked casually around the corner of the building and, as soon as she was out of the guard's sight, scrambled up the nearest tree. When she was high enough that the leaves and branches concealed her from below, she sat with one leg on either side of a broad branch and waited.
The waterbender couldn't see the guard directly, but she could hear the quick clank of his armor as he jogged by. When she could no longer hear his footsteps, a smirk crept across her face. It had been a while since Katara engaged in sneaky behavior and it felt surprisingly good to get back in the habit.
Her smirk faded a bit as two vaguely familiar voices came to her from above. She looked up and could see only leaves, but knew there had to be a window or a balcony somewhere above. For an instant, Katara considered climbing down and going about her own business – she'd lost her 'escort,' so she could go about having a normal, if mopey day, now… but having tasted sneakiness again after so long, she felt remarkably good... and feeling good was so much better than feeling bad.
Her smirk returned as she climbed higher up the trunk. The branches grew thinner, but the voices were much louder and, when she stopped and crouched on a branch that only just held her weight, Katara could make out much of what was being said.
The first voice, still mostly light and melodic but touched with the first hints of adulthood, was Aang's. Frustration made him speak louder, faster. "Zuko, I only want to help you!" His tone lowered, gentled. Katara missed some words. "…well as I do that you can't keep doing this forever. Spirits, have you seen yourself recently? You look-"
The other voice was much lower, much older, and much more in control. It took her a second to realize it, but this was indeed the voice of the Fire Lord – a little deeper than it had been and weary, but still as persistent as ever. "…would much appreciate it if the Avatar would mind his own affairs."
"You don't want to talk about running yourself to death? Fine! How about the illegal stuff? The embezzling? How about all the bad stuff going on right under the Fire Nation's nose?"
"I told you, I'm handling it. The situation will be rectified shortly."
Aang scoffed and the roll of his eyes carried in his voice. "Right. It's all well under control. No obstacle is enough to stop the Mighty Fire Lord and his-"
There was a sound like a chair scraping on a hard wood floor. Zuko's voice came down to her in patches, low and fierce. "…a complete idiot? I told you… must not be spoken, here. If it is discovered… Fire Lord… will be no stopping them! …will dissipate… chance to… will be lost. …lucky if I'm not executed by an angry mob."
"Right. I'm sorry, Zuko. This is just so different from the way I would deal with a problem – I have trouble understanding."
"That is because you are the Avatar. We are not all so blessed with instant authority." A chair creaked as Zuko sat again and there was a long silence.
Katara's smirk was by now long-gone. Her jaw hung slightly slack. Was Zuko… stealing from his own country? Embezzling, secrecy, worrying about angry mobs… and here was Aang, urging him to correct his ways. Really, it was no wonder people longed for a return to Azula's reign, if this was how Zuko handled the job.
Aang was speaking again, his voice hesitant. "Are we still friends, Zuko?"
Again, there was a long silence. At last, Zuko spoke. "Joining you was a turning point in my life. I will never regret it and I will always cherish my memories of the time I spent with you and the others. Still, I am what I was born to be, what I have always been." There was a creak and a shuffle, as if he was rising to stand. "I would urge you to remember the story of my great grand-father and Avatar Roku. If I were you, I would not trust the Fire Lord to save you from the fire."
Katara wobbled slightly on her branch. This could not be the Zuko she had known. Surely this was not the boy who had ridden with her to hunt down her mother's killer, or to this very city to fight his sister. Her stomach clenched. It was as if her friend had died.
"I am sorry, Avatar." The voice of the Fire Lord came to her again, jolted her from her daze.
Aang took a moment in responding and, when he did, his voice was somehow more adult, laden with some manner of wisdom. "There is no need to apologize for being honest, Fire Lord Zuko. However, I would seek to remind you of something else." There was a sound of another body rising from its chair. "I'm not Avatar Roku and you're not your great grand-father. Destiny sometimes takes us by unexpected routes, but I believe completely that your path will cross mine again and again." Katara couldn't believe it, but she thought she could hear Aang smiling. "Someday, your answer will be 'yes,' again."
Katara shook her head, not so sure she shared Aang's confidence. She listened as he exchanged parting words with the firebender, then left the room. Thinking perhaps to catch some further dirty secrets, she held her place in the tree for a long while. All she really overheard were the sounds of a few financiers being interviewed in a language of mathematical jargon too thick for her to penetrate. Then, there was silence interjected with the scratching of a pen on paper.
It was kind of impressive that Zuko could speak Math, but not impressive enough to get him off the hook for stealing from the treasury while people were starving in his streets… If they were still friends, she would let him have it. Oh, he'd be sorry he ever strayed from the side of good. Then again, just because he was no longer Aang's friend didn't mean that he wasn't hers… Maybe she'd give him a talking-to anyway.
But not right now, after her little play at espionage. Now, it would be best to slip away, unseen.
Katara's legs were a bit numb and stiff and, as she began climbing down from the tree, she slipped, barely managing to grab the branch above her to save herself a nasty fall. She breathed a few deep sighs of relief. How fine it would be if she broke her leg while eavesdropping…
Still, her boot scraping against the bark had made a conspicuous sound and she could hear the Fire Lord's footsteps as he approached the window. Katara's heart hammered against her breastbone, even though she knew she could not be seen for all the leaves. She held very still, waiting for him to move away from the window so that she could, you know, slip away… unseen.
"I know you're there, spy." His voice was a growl, a threat. It made Katara uncomfortably aware of the sensitive nature of what she had learned. What might a ruthless firebender do to protect such information? She did not get much time to wonder. "Identify yourself before I burn that tree to the ground with you in it."
AN: Boy, I sure could go for some more reviews... they sure do make it easier to write the next chapter... which may or may not contain adventure, blackmail, and fine dining... hint hint, tease tease... Actually, to come clean, the next chapter is nearly ready, but I'm not posting it until I get some serious reviews. This chapter has had thirty hits in about four hours. So, as soon as I get ten (totally reasonable number) reviews, I'll post the next chapter.