A/N: Guess what? I'm back! You might've guessed that from the fact that I've finally posted Chapter 9… Oh, and pretty please read the end Note, in which I desperately ask for your opinions (it's actually about a future chapter that could depend on your answers). And I hope you've been good and read the spoilers on my profile, but if you haven't I'll tell you here because I'm in such a good mood :P. Yes, anyway, quite soon you will be reading of… wait for it… the first kiss! !gasp! And what, pray tell, will happen in the awkward/pleasant moments after it? Heehee, stay tuned…
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or anything related to it. This story, its plot and anything original belongs to me.
Chapter 9: Square One
Her eyes flickered open. Being a naturally light sleeper, she was always the first to wake up in the morning, especially when the sun particularly bothered her and stuck a frown on her face. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few more seconds and opened them once again, finally adjusting to the sleepy morning sunlight.
Katara had been lying on her side. She pushed herself up, leaning on her left arm for support, and glancing down at her right, she noticed something rather interesting. Her hand was placed lightly on the cover of Love Amongst the Dragons, and next to it was Zuko's pale hand, the book firmly in his grip. He was still asleep with that 'soft' look, his mouth slightly open as he breathed evenly. Now she remembered that it had been his turn to read last night, and she had passed out while he had been doing so.
She glanced to the side as her long coat slipped from her shoulders. With a soft sigh, she removed her hand from that dangerous spot, her fingers accidentally grazing his, and she placed it in her lap. For some foreign reason, she was hoping she had remained asleep for longer. She turned her body so that she could gaze in front of her, knowing her face was an emotionless mask at this moment. Even though she was confused on the inside. She just could not comprehend what – why these things were happening to her, of all people.
"Morning."
Katara jumped as if Toph had caused a molehill to appear where she was seated. "Why did you do that?" She looked away from him, not wanting him to see the look on her face.
Zuko's eyes were open, but his position had not changed. "You're easy to catch off guard."
"And how would you know that?"
"Because it's obvious."
She narrowed her eyes and whipped her head around to glare at him. "What?"
"Ever since you started reading this book-" he sat up, pulling the book towards him "- you've been acting like a human."
"I already do."
"Sure, whatever… I also meant you're being unusually nice to me," he teased. "Have you grown a heart overnight?"
"Oh, shush. Do you prefer me being mean to you?"
He snorted. "Like the good old days?"
She rolled her eyes. "It doesn't hurt to be okay to you because we're on a mission – not nice. And I have to work with you, otherwise I would've left a long time ago."
"How would you explain that to the others?"
She gaped at him. "You're… evil. Do you know that?"
He smirked. "Toph calls it 'bad at being good'."
"Or good at being bad!"
"Whichever you prefer…"
"Ugh!" She gritted her teeth and got up, stomping over to her part of the campsite. Back to Square One: Trying to figure out Zuko's intentions. But if they had ever left Square One, she did not know.
He chuckled. "Relax. I was only kidding."
Katara paused in the middle of neatly folding her long coat to feel her face heat up. She huffed. "Well, I don't find it funny." She shoved her long coat between her moose-lion bag and rolled-up sleeping bag a little too violently. She turned around again after she thought her blush had faded. "Since when are you so… cocky? Zuko, what are you doing?"
The boy was standing near Appa's side, a grimace on his face, staring at the bison's fur. In fact, the next five minutes were spent with her frowning at him, while he just… stared. He coughed. "I think you should take a look at this, Katara." He spoke as though he was distracted.
Her frown deepened and she could feel her eyebrows pinching more as she bent down to pick up her waterskin. Slipping the strap over her head to cross over her abdomen, she walked up to where Zuko was standing, and as her eyes came to rest on the spot he was pointing at, she could barely restrain the gasp that followed. "How did this happen?" she said softly, her expression melting. When Zuko did nothing to reply to her, she jerked her head to look at him. "Did you do this?"
"No!" He was quick to hold up his hands. "I swear. But I think I know who did." He parted Appa's bloodstained fur to reveal the cringeworthy end of a sharp quill. "Remember yesterday, when Nyla… was displaying her affections for Appa?"
She resisted the urge to giggle at his hindrance in speaking of strong emotion; she had first discovered this last night, when he would lower his voice to mumble of Shao's interest in Ran. "Yes."
"Well… don't you think this could be one of her quills?" he asked her, as if it was more obvious than one having to breathe to live.
"Yes, I do." She turned and stuck her nose in the air, digging for a snarky comeback in her mind. "I wasn't born yesterday. Of course, you're Fire Nation, and you people always-" She stopped herself, only just too late, silently cursing herself. It would be so horrible to badger him about his past before defecting, especially after all that had transpired between them. She swallowed hard and tried to remain in her annoyed character; as if nothing had happened.
"He needs to be healed. I'm going hunting," he said without expression.
And also without another word, he brushed past her, gathered up his Dao swords – were those with him the whole journey? – and left the campsite. All the while, Katara's temporarily hard gaze softened, her eyebrows slanting outwards as she realized just how she must have sounded, notably after the things he had done for her these past few days – goodness, she would have drowned if it were not for him. But then again, she was no stranger to speaking words harsher than intended. In the winter – actually, the same day Zuko had saved her from pirates – she had let her jealousy of Aang's waterbending ability get the best of her and so hurt his feelings. But instead of pouting much like a kicked koalotter, Zuko had barely reacted – no emotions or expressions – and just walked away.
As she drew water from the skin at her waist, she could sense the Painted Lady shaking a finger at her disappointedly. She sighed; she was confused as to why she was feeling so bad. She had hardly insulted him, right? Wrong. Although she had not completed that sentence, she had put through a message which had become untrue, but that was currently unknown to her. People did not act in such a messed up way to their friends.
"Ugh."
Another sigh; Zuko was her friend. She hovered the water between her outstretched arms and let a portion of it slink onto her hand and freeze into an ice glove. The water between her arms had chi energy focused into it until it was a glowing orb. She pressed it to the bison, laying the gloved hand next to the maimed area to support her. She closed her eyes; her healing had improved greatly, since she did not even need the melting snow visualization to guide her. And in just a few moments, the wound was closed and the bleeding stopped, no part of that area – in or out – still hurt. Except for Nyla's quill. At least it had the property to paralyze and numb, otherwise Appa would be in a lot of pain. Now, as Katara poured more of her chi into the puddle pressed to Appa, she had to focus until she was literally a part of him; apparently, he had enjoyed it when Nyla nuzzled up to him, and understood that it was by accident when the quill had entered his flesh. He's very smart. Just some more focus… now she was inside of him, feeling how the spine was uncomfortably wedged between two of his muscles – at least it had not stabbed one. Oh, but now she would have to further her healing until she could remove the quill with the help of those two muscles. His flicker of pain from that attempt sent a shiver down her spine, but she willed herself on.
"Just a bit more, Appa. Hang in there…" She was unsure whether it was the bison or herself she was comforting. "And… there!" She pulled the blood-tinted water away from Appa's body and flung it into the bushes with a flick of her wrist; the small effort causing her to stumble a little. She plucked the quill from the ground with the ice glove, and as she threw it into the bushes too, she changed the phase of the frozen water back to liquid.
She collapsed onto her haunches, rubbing her temples. Healing had never taken such a strain on her. Maybe it was because she had not performed the technique since… how long ago? Goodness, time seemed like such a muddle in her mind, considering the sensitive state she had been in at the time. She took a few deep breaths, trying to figure out why her head suddenly felt tight, with a dull but painless throb in her brain that braced her for a monstrous headache.
But then her thoughts were interrupted when the sound of flapping wings filled her ears, not helping the pounding of blood as the two sounds competed with the goal of deafening her. With a wince, she looked up and over her shoulder, just in time to see a massive – and disgustingly scraggy – messenger hawk fly at her, its claws bared. In a shock she staggered and fell back onto the ground, and felt a small graze on her neck when the claws snatched her mother's necklace right from her. "Hey!" She held her arms up protectively but the hawk was already disappearing in the direction of the crag. "Give that back!" she hissed as she got to her feet, ignoring the quickening of the pounding in her ears, and bolted after the hawk. The calm flying it took on mocked how slow her running was, until two moments later when it finally got bored and zoomed forward. Katara grumbled as she was nearly smacked in the face with a branch. She supposed this served her right for being unfair to Zuko…
Zuko slashed away a dangling vine with his dual Dao swords. He was especially talented with the pair of weapons, being a skill he picked up while on the seas. Like that, many good things had come out of his exile, now that he looked at it. He would never have travelled the world as many times as he had – if any at all; he would never have learnt how to fight with nothing but combat and the Dao swords, which he now slipped into the sheath across his back; and he would never have met Ka- …he would never have met the gang.
It was a strange and undeniably wrong thing to do, to just walk off the way he did. Especially since he had not taken offense by what she said. He understood that she was still adjusting to this new friendship – so he called it – of theirs, and it was an honest mistake performed by her loose tongue. She might have been making a wise crack, a taunt, for all he knew! But he did not want to know. He knew it was dangerous territory to be treading upon, and he would rather not be stuck in the middle of it. Day by day, they grew closer. And he knew that if they ventured further even more, a consequence was to be faced. In fact, too many consequences. There was a girl, back in the Fire Nation, who had once doted on him greatly – there was nothing left between them, wiped away when she had given him the most bitterly cold glare anyone could ever have. It was a look of hatred. That meant their relationship had come to a close, or so he thought. His brow furrowed. Either way, he still felt immense guilt when seeing her chained up by Azula, and the way things were now, he still struggled to imagine redemption for himself. He was a bad person with a bad past; it would take a long time and a great deal to forgive himself. And so things could never advance further with the master waterbender, who had dropped her defenses and so unsuspectingly captured his interest. She was a girl of strong mind, strong will, peaceful power; but she was also caring, compassionate, used her enchanting power for good, constructive things – unlike the firebenders he knew; they abused their power and destroyed and killed. He was a firebender, she was a waterbender. Bad and good. She was everything he was not.
He sighed, not bothering to slice a branch in front of his face, instead moving it aside with a flick of the hand. His mind raced back to what had just taken place. Perhaps he should not leave her completely in the dark. He ought to let her know that he was not offended, that there should not be any bad feelings between them. She had been speaking the truth, of course. But he was finally within the circle, and even though she had not accepted him by word of mouth, he knew she had. He would rather not push this too far, for he might just end up pushing himself out of the comforting arc. He hoped it was this group of people, whose company he could liken to family, would help him to forgive. Though for now, it was time to focus on Katara's mission, and to see whether she had truly forgiven him.
Before he could think up ridiculous ways to apologize, he stopped when he heard someone calling from behind him. "Hey! You give that back!" It was Katara – had someone else shown up at the campsite?
"Who is it this time?" he muttered, turning around with a hand on the hilts of his swords. But instead of whipping them out to strike the face of the rogue, he found himself ducking as the most unhealthy-looking messenger hawk flew at him. If he was not mistaken, that was Katara's necklace hooked onto its claw. As it zoomed ahead, narrowly missing him, Katara came jogging from the same direction the hawk had come from.
She paused, bending to press her palms on her knees, panting. And her hair had an enormous twig in it. "…Messenger hawk… just came and… and… it took…" she trailed off.
Before he could burst out laughing, he snatched the twig from her brown hair. Clearing his throat, he said, "We'd better hurry if we wanna catch it."
She straightened up, licking her lips and easing her breathing. "Okay, let's go." She nodded at him.
Much to her distaste, Zuko tore ahead of her, letting her trail behind like a loose thread of blue mianhua. Their feet stamped the muddy ground with their footprints, revealing the trail they formed towards the tower of earth that formed the crag. At last, Zuko broke through the greenery and arrived at the opening in which the pond lay. Two moments later, his trail of blue mianhua burst out and into the clearing, halting at his side.
"Nice landing." He shielded his eyes with his hand and gazed at the top of the crag; the sun seemed to have become so unusually bright, even more than it should have been at noon – at least he thought it was noon. But it was injected with a haziness of some sort, making it even harder to determine the time of day. His eyes, just as gold as the sun itself, came to rest on a brown shamble of twigs and leaves and dripping mud which, with the addition of the scruffy messenger hawk, he took as a nest. "There it is." He pointed at the thin branch the shabby structure rested on. A twig then fell from the nest. "Tch, looks like he isn't domesticated in the art of being a bird."
He glanced to the side to find Katara shielding her eyes as well. "That messenger hawk looks familiar! It looks just like Sokka's old one."
"Messenger hawks look pretty much the same." Zuko lowered his hand. "Wait here – I'll be right back."
"Wh-What? No, Zuko, you don't have to get my necklace back-"
"Don't you want it?"
"Of course I do, but-"
"Then hang on while I get it for you." He moved around the pond and groped for the rocky surface of the crag. Finding none, he settled for jumping onto the rock face above the glimmering pond water. Taking a few steps back, he made a running start before Katara stopped him.
"Wait, let me freeze the water for you," she offered.
"It's fine, I can-"
"No, no, no. I want to practice my ice control, and you're gonna let me. Got that?"
He sighed. "Okay, okay. Freeze it."
She looked right at the pond. She felt a little guilty by doing something to the pure water, but before she could become the spirit of Hei Bai and prevent herself from doing it, she raised her arms and with a sweeping motion, froze the water solid. It actually looked even more beautiful when frozen.
After testing the strength of the ice, Zuko walked across the surface cautiously and took hold of the rock with both hands. Giving himself a boost with his foot, he pulled himself up by moving further along the slightly slanted face of the tall crag. From there, he scaled the wall effortlessly, pausing only once to seek out his next handhold. He reached the lone branch, and when he looked up to spot his target, the hawk – necklace still in claw – let out a wail and glared at him with beady black eyes.
"Don't hurt it!" called Katara.
He released his left hand's hold on the crag face and tried to gently reach for the necklace – it was returned with a bat of the wings and another torturous shriek. "I don't think that's a problem," he responded to the waterbender on the ground. After three more of the gentle tries, Zuko lost his patience. He firmed his grip on the rocky face and made a swipe at the necklace, successfully taking it between his fingers. But his palm latched onto the sharp claw of the bird, and it pulled. The bird put up a good struggle, but finally tore free from Zuko's clasp, drawing a cry from the boy. As the bird flew away in annoyance, Zuko's hand failed to hold on any longer, and as he fell back, his hand desperately grasped for the rocky surface once again. Instead, he ended up grabbing what appeared to be a scroll from within the nest, the back of his hand brushing against the unmistakable warmth of… eggs? Before he could ponder this, he was hurtling down to earth again. "Katara! Unfreeze it!"
"I'm on it!" She held her hands in front of her, palms parallel to one another. She moved her hands, still in those positions, to the left, and suddenly lunged outwards, diagonally right. The water mirrored her action by returning to normal, but only a small gap in the surface ice opened for Zuko before he fell though it with a splash. Concerned, Katara scurried up to the uneven crater in the icy surface. She hoped he hadn't injured himself. "Zuko…" She knelt beside the opening, peering inside, searching – apparently, this pond was deeper than expected. Zuko was floating there, his eyes opening just enough to sight her. She stuck her hand inside the cold, reaching for his hand to assist him. Slowly, he grasped her wrist with his right hand, but instead of pulling himself up and out of the water, he yanked Katara inside. He pulled her down to his level, a shocked expression on her face. She came to her senses, a confused look smearing her features like paint. But it faded away when she saw him answer that look with a smirk, and then he swam upwards to the surface, leaving her alone underwater. Oh, now he deserved a good yelling-at. But not at this moment, when she was running out of air. With a gag that resulted in the fizzing of bubbles around her head, she joined him on the surface, refusing his hand while she hacked and gasped, collapsing on the ice.
"Thanks, by the way," he said between breaths.
Katara, spread beside the crater, rubbed her eyes and let her arms drop beside her, her chest heaving. "Shut… up!" she breathed.
He chuckled – he chuckled? Why was he mocking her after she saved him? Then again, now they were almost even. "That takes care of the bath for today." He sat up, letting another chuckle loose – though Katara decided it should be called a cackle. "You're a great bender," he told her, laying his hand on her forearm for just a moment before standing and making his way back to the campsite.
She was confused when she found a flush wave through her body, that same spot where he had touched tingling. She let out a huff of air, closing her eyes, letting her lungs calm down and drink in the thick, sweet summer air. She was not sure how long she laid there for, because when she finally decided to return to the campsite, she was dry from head to toe.
As she parted the branches and stepped into the weak shade of the campsite's clearing, Katara found another rather interesting surprise, though it could not compete with the one she had discovered the same morning – which now felt as if it had been years ago. Zuko stood beside the fireplace, nicely lit even though the sun was blazing brighter, his tunic discarded on the ground by his side of the campsite, wringing his maroon shirt. Apparently, while she just been lying around waiting for herself to dry, he had been wringing and stretching his shirt until the water dripped from it, though it had not worked as well as her method had. She grinned with quite a scary malice, just a hint of a smirk in it.
She leaned against the tree – the same one with her belongings piled against it – and admired the entertaining display of her victory over him. At last, she had won. She watched the bare-chested boy struggle to dry his shirt – she replayed that sight in her mind and placed a hand over her mouth, blushing. Zuko was standing in front of her, without… Goodness, at least she had not come in when he was drying his trousers! She would never have lived that down – in fact, he might abandon this mission and fly away on Appa or maybe even that hawk, or she would dive back into the pond and proceed to live there for the rest of her life. Oh, but he was quite nicely built for a boy his age. Compared to Sokka who was just a year younger at fifteen, Zuko was very much more muscular. It might have developed from his countless days of training – during winter, one time when they ran into him aboard his ship, he had been training extremely hard. With a hard wring of the shirt once again, Katara had to choke back a girly giggle when she saw the muscles in his pale arm flex. Before she exploded, she had to stop this.
She cleared her throat, looking serious. "Uh, Zuko, what are you doing?"
As if being yanked from a trance, Zuko turned to face her with his classic exasperated look. "My shirt won't dry," he mumbled.
Now she grinned again, and she could have sworn she saw Zuko shiver. "Serves you right for getting me wet, too."
His raised his eyebrow. "How did you get dry? And where were you?" he added.
"At the pond. I decided to fix up my hair, and I should remind you that I'm a waterbender – of course I can dry myself quickly," she lied, looking away out of the strange paranoia that he might figure out her fib just by looking her in the eye. When he said nothing and continued torturing his shirt, she sighed. "Let me help you." She walked up to him, looking smug when he did not try to protest. Looks like he needs my help too… She pulled the water easily from the garment, twisting the puddle this way and that for her enjoyment, before flinging it into the trees. Something deep red and shiny caught her eye when she turned back to him – and it was coming from Zuko's left hand. "Zuko… what happened?"
"Stupid messenger hawk clawed me."
"Idiot!" She gave him a smack on the shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"You weren't here."
"So you should've come to me." She grabbed his wrist and pulled it to her before coating it in shining blue water from the containing skin at her waist. After just a moment of silence and focused chi energy, the cut was healed to perfection, but she did not release his wrist. She took the opportunity to glare into his eyes, but as soon as blue clashed with gold, she found her glare melting.
He was watching her with an unreadable expression, as if he was trying to figure something out, trying to tell her something, maybe even pleading. He gave a half-smile and closed his eyes, successfully breaking the spell. "Looks like it's your turn to save me from pirates."
For some odd reason, Katara found herself smiling just as lightly, a little laugh sounding behind her lips. "Yeah." She released his wrist, rubbing her arm with her other hand.
It was then that he turned away and walked back to his side of the campsite. As he pulled his shirt over his body again, Katara's view was cut off. Until then she had not even realized that she was staring, and upon touching her finger to her cheek, she felt how warm it had become. He tied his tunic on and seated himself under his tree, sighing when he stretched. "So, you passed out while I was reading."
She felt something of dismay when he did not sit in the middle of the campsite, like they usually happened to later in the days. "Yes, I did." She edged onto her side and knelt down, folding her clammy hands neatly in her lap. "Tell me what happened."
"Well, Shao's father got engaged to a woman other than her mother, and then she was so upset that she ran away from the feast. Ran followed her and… gave her a hug…" Zuko scratched his head, glancing left and right. "And Tiro went looking for her much later but couldn't find her because she was with Ran. And I stopped there 'cause you were asleep."
"You're so poetic."
"I'm flattered."
"Anyway, listen, we need to talk." Super! First I don't know how to speak, and now here I am, asking for something I'd rather not do? I swear, Zuko is just… hectic. And now he's making me hectic, too! Ugh, I-
"Yeah," he interrupted her ranting mind. "But let me go fir-"
"I take back what I said before," she blurted. "It was a mistake, and after what a great partner you've been for this mission, I'm really grateful. Someone else would've given up as soon as we crashed, but not you. So, what I should be saying is… thanks…"
Zuko frowned. "I'm not offended, Katara. I get that it was by accident, and I don't mind. You probably would've said the truth, and I have no right to keep you from speaking it. Just like I had no right to walk off like I did – I wasn't upset; I needed to think about… something." He silently recalled his thoughts from the afternoon. "But if it taught you a lesson then that's fine too," he added lightheartedly.
She rolled her eyes. "So, are we even?"
"Not quite. There's still the mission to go through, and as soon as we find a good route to take through the island, we'll leave this site. But I also want to know something…" He examined the smooth skin of his hand where the cut had been. His eyes fixed on that area, he continued. "Are you ashamed of your bloodbending ability?"
The question caught her off guard. "Wh-What?"
He clenched his fist, looking up at her. "You are, aren't you?"
"I don't-"
"It's fine. I just wanted to tell you something important. Remember this, okay?"
She nodded slowly. "Okay…"
"Never be ashamed of what you've learnt and done – there's a reason why it's there. And the way you've been healing Appa… you've been using bloodbending. Not normal healing, otherwise you wouldn't have got his bones back in place when you first healed him before this mission. You've healed Appa now, right?" She nodded again. "Exactly. That's how you got Nyla's quill out of there. Now it all makes sense – why you've been getting headaches after you healed something major, and why you were so normal after you healed my hand." Silence. "I'm saying bloodbending isn't always bad. You can use it for good, too, like healing." He rested his back against the tree behind him. "Don't ever be ashamed of it, Katara."
Katara was gaping at him. She closed her mouth, and when she realized the good intentions behind his words, how sincere and actually heartwarming they were, a small smile crossed her lips. She leaned back against the tree like he had, only one thought coming to mind; she and Zuko were definitely past Square One.
A/N:
Thank you all for your amazing reviews – it gave me such joy opening my mailbox to find them waiting for me, and after such a long time since I last checked (back in December)! Yay! I can easily say that this was my… second favourite chapter to write (Chapter 5 was my favourite so far). The scene with Zuko and Katara retrieving the necklace was literally one of the first five things that came to mind when I first thought of this story.
Urgent Question: If something were to go wrong – take note of the "IF" – who would you rather feel sorry for; Katara or Zuko?
This applies to a chapter in the near future, and something may or may not go wrong. Who knows? Reread the summary, and you might just pick up what I mean…
Hope you enjoyed it!
