A/N: As most of you know, I'm appallingly slow at updating, but I'm not usually this bad. I even had most of this chapter done for the last month or so, but I just haven't had the time to polish it up. I'm sure most of you don't care why I was so long this time, but it boils down to me returning to college and trying to browbeat the local school system into placing my son in Early Intervention classes sometime before the sun consumes the earth like they're legally obligated to. But I am an obnoxiously tenacious Yankee in the South; I don't care if they hate me for being pushy, I want my son to have the best chance at a normal life as he's capable of. Now he's in school and getting therapy, and I am content.
Yeah; sorry. None of you want to read about my personal crap. Ahem. On with the story!
When the morning sun rose, Katara was awake to greet it. The night before, she had been exhausted, falling asleep almost immediately after eating the food ration Zuko had passed her. She had even been too tired to argue when she'd noticed that her portion was almost twice the size of his, but her eyes had snapped open a few hours later and they hadn't closed in sleep since.
As the first blush of dawn began to brighten the darkness around her, Katara readjusted her cloak, settling deeper into its warm folds. She watched silently as Zuko stirred and rolled to his feet. His intentions were not clear until he stumbled to the far side of the clearing and began to fumble with the sash holding his pants up. Her face flamed as she swiftly lay down and squeezed her eyes shut.
Barely daring to breathe, muscles frozen stiff, Katara listened for the sounds of Zuko returning to his blanket. Even after his light snores told her that it was safe to sit up, she lay perfectly still and stared at the lone star visible in the dawn sky. Tui and La, that was mortifying.
Dawn is breaking; eight more days of this ridiculous punishment. Staring at the ceiling with her hands folded behind her head, Azula blew out a frustrated breath. "At the risk of sounding like Mai's prettier, smarter sister, I'm bored out of my wits. Speaking of, where is our apathetic friend?"
Around a yawn, Ty Lee offered sleepily, "She doesn't like doing the sleepover thing anymore. She said we outgrew that when we were five."
"It's not like I have anything else to do these days." Azula rolled her head to the side, glancing at her companion. "I'm wide awake; find something to entertain us for a little while, Ty Lee."
"Like what? Ooh, wait a second. I've got something!" A few minutes of rustling and banging around on the other side of the room ended with a delighted, "Ready!" The chirping response was accompanied by the sound of fabric swishing across the floor. Ty Lee, swathed in Azula's robes of state and with the worked metal Fire Nation emblem that she kept hanging on the wall perched precariously atop her head, strolled forward.
As her friend stepped out of the shadows that lingered away from the fireplace, Azula couldn't help but laugh. Ty Lee had hijacked the laces from Azula's armor and managed to stick one to her upper lip, giving the appearance of a long, thin moustache. With the robes and the flame on her head, there was no mistaking whom the girl was impersonating. "Princess Azula, you are a failure. Less a failure than your brother or your uncle or mother, but a failure nonetheless." Ty Lee scowled down on her friend and continued in a ridiculous impersonation of Ozai's rich baritone.
Azula smiled lazily; a bit of mockery suited her mood at the moment. "How have I failed, Father? I've wounded or killed the Avatar, captured and subjugated the last bastion of the Earth Kingdom and manipulated the situation so that even had my brother stayed, I would have gained the throne at your death, not him. I have failed at nothing; I've only earned a rather boring vacation."
Ty Lee did a fair imitation of Ozai's scowl. "You are a prodigy at matters of state, true." She tapped her finger on her jaw. "But you are not womanly enough."
Rolling to her knees, Azula clasped her hands to her heart and plastered a syrupy look on her face as she batted her eyes at Ty Lee. "Are you saying that I'm not pretty enough, Father? That I should give up firebending and my studies of strategy and tactics to perfect the arts of kohl and rouge?"
Pointing her finger at her friend, Ty Lee struggled to suppress a giggle. "Wear a dress once in awhile. Flirt with the sons of my advisors. Sneak out of your room at night to meet a boy that I thoroughly disapprove of."
Azula bowed. "As my lord commands," she said. Stretching, she opened her mouth to tell Ty Lee to order their breakfast, but Ty Lee cut her off.
"And change your hairstyle; that bun is utilitarian and unflattering."
Azula flicked a small flame at Ty Lee, who dodged it easily. "That was unnecessary," she drawled. "There's nothing wrong with my hair." Stretching again, she slid from the bed. "Well, that was a fun ten minutes. What else can we do for the next eight days to keep me from sliding into a pit of unending boredom?" Her eyes lit up. "Fancy sneaking out to the training area to practice?"
Zuko folded his blanket neatly, stowing it back in his bag and said, "I thought we'd do a little sparring today to make sure we're prepared for when we leave here. If you're up to it."
Katara scowled from where she reclined against the base of a tree. "Of course I'm up to it, Zuko." Scorn flashed in her eyes. "I'm a master waterbender; my skills haven't evaporated because I haven't used them for a few days."
He snorted, but kept his face averted so that she couldn't read his expression. She may not have been ready to admit it, but there was still something wrong with the waterbender, something that he couldn't quite identify. Her face was drawn and he knew she was restless in the night, but he was certain it was physical. He'd started giving her larger portions of food three days ago, but she was steadily losing weight. A girl almost half his weight getting twice the food he was shouldn't be losing weight, but she was. Now when she bent over the spring for a drink of water, her spine was visible.
She waited for him to turn back to her with a sarcastic comment, but Zuko just stood there and refused to face her. "Oh, spit it out before you choke on it, Zuko," Katara sighed.
"There's still something wrong with you." Zuko turned and looked for her reaction to his words. "I don't know what, but if you're not well, then we've got no chance once we leave here, and we have to leave soon. We've got food for two more meals, three if we're lucky."
"Two more meals? Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Katara latched onto the immediate problem.
Glaring at her, Zuko replied swiftly, "Spirits, you're an idiot sometimes." Ignoring her squawk of outrage, he added, "We've got to leave tomorrow at the latest, and you're sick. You're also a healer. Do something about it."
Well. As tempting as it was to go stick a finger in Zuko's face and tell him off for talking to her like that, he had a point. If they were that short on food, they had to move out and, to be honest with herself, the trek to the nearest campsite she had set up was not looking too appealing at the moment. Without a word, Katara made her way to the small spring for a healing session.
Zuko warily eyed his companion as she walked to the water's edge, waiting for her to turn around and yell at him or smack him with the water, but she didn't. When she raised glowing hands from the pool, he stood quietly as she slid those hands methodically over her arms and legs. He'd never watched a waterbender heal before, having been too busy when she'd healed herself when they'd first arrived, and if the niggling thought crossed his mind once or twice that she might be capable of healing his scar, he put it down to wishful thinking.
"You were right." Those were possibly the most appalling words Katara had ever spoken. When Zuko raised his head from his meditative pose to stare at her, she smiled. The words were apparently as jarring to him as they were to her.
"What?" The question was out of his mouth before Zuko could blink, and he frowned. Letting the waterbender break his meditation with three simple words was shameful. How could three words have such an effect on him?
Katara had seen Zuko in many moods over their various encounters, from enraged to cajoling to defeated and confused, but she had never seen him mildly disgruntled. His forehead furrowed and he was frowning, but the lack of bright anger in his eyes let her know that he wouldn't lose his temper anytime soon, and that led her to the amusing thought that he would lose his temper if he knew she could read him that easily.
Suspiciously, he added, "Why are you smiling like that?"
Swallowing her good humor, Katara repeated, "I said that you were right. I needed another healing session, and I was too stubborn to realize it."
"That was too easy." Zuko's eyes narrowed. "What are you up to?" He sprang to his feet. "If you think that because you're stronger now you can ditch me, think again, waterbender. I'm ten times the tracker you are, and when I catch up with you-"
"Whoa, whoa, wait a second, Zuko. No one said anything about ditching anyone." Yet, she added mentally. But if I don't trust you by the time we find Sokka and Toph… "All I'm saying is that you were right; I wasn't fully healed."
He stared at her for a long moment and struggled to keep his jaw from falling open. "That's it? I was right?"
She shot him a nasty look that clearly said, Spirits, you're thick. "Yes, Zuko, that's it. It was a simple statement indicating that you were helpful and correct, not a subtle hint at my future intentions to supposedly ditch you."
"Fine, then. You're welcome." He turned to walk away.
Katara sighed and turned away herself. That was quite probably the most bizarre 'thank you-you're welcome' exchange ever in the history of the planet. This boy… man… whatever he was, confused her. He was so different from everyone else she had ever known. So mistrustful, so ready to believe the worst about himself and others. Yet he wasn't completely evil; he still tried to do the right thing sometimes. Katara sighed. If he had a moral compass, he had lost magnetic north a long time ago. Maybe, just maybe, she could help him find it again.
"Do you want to spar?"
His voice came from behind the tree she was leaning against. Startled, Katara whipped around. "What?"
Zuko smiled when her head appeared around the trunk of the tree. They had an affinity for trees, it seemed. "I asked if you wanted to spar. Practice. We haven't had any practice since we left the palace- longer for you. If you're healed now, shouldn't we sharpen up before we leave tomorrow morning?"
"Now we're leaving tomorrow morning?"
He sighed. She refused to make anything easy for him. "It makes the most sense. That way, we have one meal to take with us in case we can't find anything right away." He dropped into a fighting stance. "Now do you want to spar or not?"
Katara drew the water from the spring with a practiced move of her arm and settled into a basic defensive move, the water poised around her. "What are you waiting for, Zuko? I thought you wanted to fight?"
"What are you, crazy?" he asked, dropping his hands. "We're hiding. Don't you think big puffs of steam coming from the forest would alert everyone of exactly where we are? I meant spar; the moves without the elements, just to get our reactions back to where they should be."
Oh, right. Spar, Katara thought with a wince. "Yes, well, I've never actually done that kind of sparring. It's pointless for waterbenders, because we don't do close combat."
"So how do you practice?" he asked curiously.
Katara shrugged. "We just do the moves by ourselves and visualize the opponent, or we practice with another master, someone who won't get hurt."
He gave her a strange look. "So you always use water?"
"Well, yeah, I guess I do," Katara said after a moment of thought. "Firebenders don't?"
Scowling, Zuko replied, "Of course we use the techniques you use- there would be a nation full of faces like mine if we didn't." He waved her off when Katara's face softened and she opened her mouth. "No, I don't want your pity; I'm just saying that fire is destructive by nature."
"That's what Jeong Jeong said!" Katara cried.
Zuko's mouth fell open. "You've met Jeong Jeong the Deserter? Really?" After she nodded, he said, "Well, that's a story for later. I was saying that in addition to the training styles you mentioned, firebenders also use sparring without the elements to sharpen our reaction time and hone our technique." He wished he had the next words back. "Do you want to try? I'll teach you."
Doubtfully, Katara said, "I don't know, Zuko. As I said, I don't do hand-to-hand. My brother does- once we meet up with him, the two of you can…" she trailed off. "Never mind. You and Sokka fighting, even practicing fighting, is a bad idea. Bad with a capital 'B'."
He snorted. "I'd mop the floor with your brother. Again."
Feeling her hackles rise, Katara shot back, "That's not the point of sparring, is it?"
"I suppose not," Zuko allowed. He waved his hands. So would you like to learn a little about sparring or not?"
"Yeah, I think I could do with a little," Katara said as she raised her hands and moved closer to him. "All right, what do we do first?"
Katara flopped on her back next to Zuko and panted, "No more. I am exhausted." Reaching down a hand to rub at her shin, she added, "And bruised. Definitely bruised."
Zuko smiled up at the hazy sun as he lay on the grass. "You did well, and better than well for your first attempt at close quarters combat."
Katara puffed up a little at the praise. "It makes sense that I would. I'm a good fighter from a distance, so I should be good up close, too."
"Not exactly," he replied amiably, tucking his hands beneath his head. "You need much faster reflexes in close, but you have the instincts for it. That last leg sweep you gave me was good."
She grinned. "I only did that because I knew what you were going to do next. Between me and Aang, I've seen you fight too many times. I knew you were going left."
He grinned back. "Let's see how confident you are when I don't hold back on you."
"What do you mean hold back?"
"I was teaching you," he said with a sigh. "It's not as if I was going to flatten you just to prove that I'm better."
It stuck in her craw, and her next words came out petulant. "Yeah, but we both know who is the better bender, don't we?"
He snorted. "We're pretty evenly matched in bending."
Katara laughed cruelly. "I squashed you like a bug in the North Pole, and I've only gotten stronger since then."
"What, and you think I was eating chocolates and drinking tea while you practiced?" He asked, turning on his side to look at her.
"No," she defended hotly, "but posing as a refugee in Ba Sing Se didn't give you a lot of chances to bend, did it?"
"No," he allowed, "but in the caverns below Ba Sing Se, I found that I was stronger than ever. You didn't beat me there."
She pointed a finger at his chest. "And that's another thing, Zuko…" She trailed off. "Do you even have a last name?" she asked suddenly.
"No, I'm just Zuko of the House of Agni," he replied in some confusion.
"It makes it hard to tell you off if you only have one name," Katara sighed. At his utterly uncomprehending look, she expounded. "Whenever my brother or I was in trouble when I was little, my mother would yell out our full names. It would stop us cold." She shook her head. "But I was saying that there's something you and I need to settle about what happened in the catacombs below Ba Sing Se, Zuko."
A phantom touch on his cheek tickled for a moment as he lay on his side and stared at the girl a few scant feet away. "What?"
She gave him the full weight of her blue gaze. "You stole my move," she accused.
"I did not!" He defended immediately, jackknifing to his feet to glare down at her.
Pushing to her own feet, she growled, "You stole the idea for the water whip. That's a waterbending move, not firebending, and don't you dare tell me otherwise, because I've seen other firebenders fight, Zuko. You. Stole. My. Move."
Zuko dropped into a defensive stance facing his irate travelling companion and, because he was fed up with her sheer pigheadedness, growled, "Maybe I did. What are you going to do about it?" His eyes widened as the move in question snaked towards his face.
A?N: So what do you think? You like it? Any and all reviews are appreciated, so make with the clicky-clicky, please. :)
As a bit of fun, whoever submits the 100th review gets a ficlet of their choosing from me, be it Avatar or another series/book universe you're into. Have fun!
