I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor do I own Tangled.
The auburn haired warrior took a step back, and gestured to the man in blue. "This is Oyaji, our village leader. I am Suki, and these are my warriors. It is our duty to protect our village, as well as preserve the memory of Avatar Kyoshi," the girl, Suki, said and looked to a point above and behind Katara. The waterbender turned. There, high on the top of the large column she and Zuko had been tied to, was a life size statue of a woman dressed in the same garb as the warriors that stood before them.
"Avatar?" Katara said, turning back to face Suki. She'd heard that word before, but did not know its meaning.
Suki gave her a quizzical look, but continued, "If you uphold your vow, then you both may stay in our village until you leave the island. Come, let's get you inside." Suki put a hand on Katara's back and began to lead her into the village. "I assume there's quite a story to be told," she commented quietly to the girl next to her, nodding her head back at Zuko, "once you both are settled in."
Katara nodded, her eyes examining the village. It was modest in size, with two rows of large, wooden homes with thatched roofs that lined a central walkway. At the end of the houses there was a large building, designed exactly like the homes, but made them look like miniatures.
Suki brought Katara to one of the buildings on the left and began to walk through the door, but stopped and spun around, noticing Zuko following them. "Oyaji," she called to the village leader, "could you please escort Zuko to one of the men's houses? And perhaps give him some new attire?" Her eyes lingered on his torn, and bloody, red clothing.
Oyaji simply nodded, and gestured for Zuko to follow him to the other side of the village. The firebender hesitated, looking at Katara. She shrugged and gestured for him to go, and a moment later he did.
Katara found that the inside of the buildings looked bigger than the outside, so much that a few families could reside there. She stayed in the sitting room as Suki went away and came back a moment later with a pile of blue fabric. The warrior sent Katara into the bathhouse connected to the home, where a hot bath had already been drawn, the steam enticing Katara to it.
Now alone, she took off her worn boots and undid her wrapped wrists. She then peeled off her pants and tunic, which were beyond repair, and untied the end of her tangled braid. She shook her long hair out, trying to smooth out its unruliness but eventually gave up and proceeded to step into the water.
She sighed as she gingerly sat down, her aching muscles soothed by the deliciously warm bath. After a few minutes of lying in complete bliss, Katara began to scrub the dirt, saltwater, and sand from her skin. The water surrounding her body began to darken, and Katara chuckled as she thought of what Grandmother's reaction to such a dirty state would be. This is why we stay in the tower, she would say, so you can remain warm, healthy, and clean.
Her skin now raw from scrubbing, Katara submerged her head under and ran her fingers through her head of snarled curls. Coming back up, Katara lay back again to relax, with her whole body except her head under the water.
When the bath had become colder, Katara reluctantly stepped out. How long had it been since she had a bath? Too long, Hama would say. But Katara found that she actually didn't mind having some dirt on her. It was proof. Proof that she was now living her dream.
After drying herself off with a towel, she dressed. Suki had given her new pants and a tunic, and Katara was pleased that they were blue. Once she put her boots back on and tied the sash around her waist, Katara looked down at herself. The clothes were lighter than her other ones, and didn't have the embellishments on the hem, but none of that mattered. Katara was just glad that her new attire was a familiar and comforting hue.
She decided to leave her hair down and out of its usual braid, and wondered what Hama would think of how Katara looked. Would she be angry that her granddaughter looked different? That she looked proud and more confident? That she looked happy?
Katara shook those thoughts from her head and walked back into the sitting room of the home. Suki was there, speaking quietly to two of her warriors. When she saw Katara enter, she stopped speaking and dismissed the girls, then smiled at her guest.
"You look much better," Suki said, coming to stand next to Katara.
"I feel better," Katara responded. "Thank you so much for your hospitality. It probably wasn't easy to take two strangers into your village. "
Suki only shrugged and changed the subject. "How long has it been since you've eaten?"
Katara opened her mouth to respond, but her growling stomach beat her to it. Suki simply laughed and said, "Come on."
The warrior took her outside of the home and onto the central road, which was bustling with people. There were vendors everywhere, selling produce, fabric, and trinkets. When Suki and Katara walked by, the waterbender noticed how the adults moved out of Suki's way as she passed. Boys blushed as the auburn haired girl passed them, and little girls looked up at her in awe.
The amount of respect that the people of Kyoshi had for Suki was almost stifling. What it must be like to be so cared for and loved, Katara thought.
The waterbender visibly froze, but had to regain composure to keep up with Suki. Katara then immediately admonished herself. How could she think such a thought? Of course Grandmother loved and cared about Katara. Her whole life she had been kept in the tower, away from everyone else. Away from harm. That was love. Right?
Now paying attention to where she was going, Katara realized Suki had led her to the large building at the apex of the short hill that the village was built on. Stepping inside, she could see that the first level was a simple dojo. There were wooden stairs on the right that Suki took her to. On the second level, there was a long, low table in the middle of the room that held platters with a variety of delectable sushi, cakes, and pastries. Surrounding the table were sitting cushions, and on one of them sat Zuko.
Katara blinked a few times as she looked at him. The new clothes that he had been given, like hers, were blue. He sat with his long legs underneath his body, his red boots peeking out from the long blue tunic.
He looked different, without his fine red fabric and the dirt washed from his face. Katara didn't know if it was a good different or bad different.
He turned his head when he heard Katara and Suki arrive. The firebender was scowling. There was a plate of sushi in front of him, but it was untouched.
Katara gave him a small smile as she sat down next to him, but he took it with indifference.
Suki took a seat across from them, pushing a plate to Katara, who eagerly began to fill it with food. "So," Suki started, "what's your story?"
Katara glanced at Zuko, but he only gave her a single bland look in return, then brought his gaze to the wall on their left. The waterbender sighed.
"As I already told you, we were taken captive by pirates, and-"
"No," Suki shook her head, the golden tassels of her headpiece swishing back and forth, "I mean, before that. How did you two meet?"
"Well," Katara said after taking a bite of a piece of hearty bread, "I was raised in a tower in the Earth Kingdom by my grandmother, who is a master waterbender. Zuko found my tower, and that's how we met. I had never been outside before," here, she blushed, embarrassed, "and so I asked him to take me to the South Pole."
Katara left out the deal between her and Zuko; that he would get his crown back once he took her to see the lights and then returned her to the tower. She guessed that Zuko would want this information to be private, and so she kept it that way.
When she said nothing more, Katara could feel Zuko's piercing eyes gaze at her. She glanced at him, and his face showed his confusion. Why? His eyes asked her.
Suki cleared her throat from across the table. "So you two are on your way to the Southern Water Tribe?"
The words sounded right, though Katara didn't know much about this 'Tribe,' so she nodded anyway. "We got caught in a few... detours... along the way, obviously." Next to her, Zuko snorted, muttering something about "understatements."
"Well," Suki responded nonchalantly, looking at the food on the table, "it certainly is kind of Zuko to be escorting you to the South."
Katara could immediately feel Zuko's temperature spike, and knew that this was not going to be good.
"Is there something you would like to say, Warrior Girl?" the firebender spat in clear irritation.
Suki waved a hand. "Not really, just that I would expect someone like you to be doing other sorts of activities."
Zuko balled his hands into tight fists. "Someone like me?" he said through clenched teeth.
"Do I have to spell it out?" Suki raised a painted eyebrow challengingly.
"Please," Zuko responded slowly, eyes narrowed.
Katara could do nothing as she watched their exchange anxiously. She should have stopped Zuko, knowing his temper, but was too curious as to what Suki was about to say.
Said girl drew in a breath. "Someone who is a traitor to their nation; a spoiled brat who betrayed-"
Zuko startled them both when he slammed his hands on the table, practically seething. He stood up in a flash, and exited the room quickly. Katara could hear him stomp down the steps angrily. She and Suki both looked at the spot Zuko had touched on the wooden table; there were burn marks identical to the shape of his hands.
Katara quickly got up and went to the window behind her. She watched as the livid firebender stalked away from the village and to the beach. Leaning against the window sill, Katara let out a long breath of air. A moment later she felt Suki join her quietly.
"I'm so sorry," Katara told her. "He gets like that often, and it's extremely frustrating. He's just so, so - Gah!" She paused, then gave a defeated sigh. "He's complicated."
"More so than you may know, I fear," Suki said, and Katara disliked her cryptic tone.
"What do you mean?"
Suki stared at her fixedly. "Do you truly not know who that man is?" Katara shook her head.
"He's-"
"No, stop," Katara put her hand up. Suki respected her wish, and became silent.
The waterbender gazed out the window. "I get the feeling that I'm the only one being kept in the dark here about him, but I've decided to keep it that way. I don't want to know Zuko by what others say about him or his past. His actions, his words, how he goes through life and everyday things... That, to me, will tell me who he truly is."
"That must have been a difficult decision to make," Suki responded after a minute of thought.
"It was. He's quite hard to read," she said with scrunched thinking look on her face. "But I feel it's better this way. I don't judge him for any bits of his past that I might learn, either, considering I barely have much of a past." Katara thought about her days spent in the tower. So much of a routine. So formulaic.
Suki was nodding her head. "You've really never been outside of your tower before now?" she asked hesitantly.
Katara shook her head of wavy curls, her cheeks flushing from embarrassment. "It was to keep me safe from the dangers of the outside world. Now that I'm here, I can see my grandmother's validation for having me stay in the tower. But I'm finding that amidst the bad, there's also a lot of good. Which is, to say the least, confusing."
Suki put her hand on Katara's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. The waterbender smiled in return, glad to think that she might have a friend.
They returned to the table, Katara finishing her meal while they chatted for a while longer. They parted after some time because Suki had to go train. Before leaving the building, Katara plated a few pieces of sushi with the intent to bring them to Zuko, for she remembered he had not eaten anything.
She made her way to the home that Oyaji had taken Zuko to, earning a few curious looks as she did so. She was surprised, however, to find all of the rooms completely empty of people. Pity settled unpleasantly in her stomach as she realized that Zuko would stay, most likely on purpose, alone during their visit in Kyoshi.
In one of the bedrooms she found Zuko's sword sheath leaning against a chair, and guessed that this room was his. Zuko himself, however, was not present, and she wondered where he had gone off to. But more importantly, when he would return.
She sat down on the soft cot, setting the plate on the wooden floor next to it. She would simply wait for him, she decided. It wasn't as if she had anything else to do.
Katara lay back on the bed, folding her arms beneath her head and stared up at the ceiling. She waited and waited, and as time went by, she began to grow tired. Her eyes found themselves closing, and she soon drifted off.
...
Zuko sat on the beach, staring at the waves. It vaguely reminded him of summers on Ember Island. Of times when he had a family that wasn't broken, and one that was happy.
He shook it head, then pulled at the collar of his tunic. The coarse fabric itched and rubbed at his skin, so unlike the expensive silk of his now destroyed Fire Nation apparel. And, of course, the color just had to be blue.
It wasn't just the clothing that he despised, however. It was the whole island and the village that he and Katara so inauspiciously stumbled into. The people here had no right to judge him and look down on him, and yet they did. It was appalling, all of the lies that his father was feeding not just his nation, but the world of Zuko's departure from the Fire Nation. How would they feel if they found out that the man was a tyrant, consumed with the desire to dominate all four nations? If they found out he was to blame for his wife's disappearance, that he scarred his own son?
That wretched old man who lead the village even had the guts to threaten the firebender about the safety of his people, when neither he nor they knew the real truths about Zuko. Agni, save us all, Zuko thought.
He got up and wiped the sand away from his person, then walked back to the village. Many of the villagers gave him wary and disapproving looks as he passed, but Zuko paid them no mind. He stepped quietly into the empty home that was lent to him during his stay. The old man Oyaji had cleared out the building for the firebender in a not-so-subtle gesture to show how much he distrusted the visitor.
Zuko didn't mind that he did not have to stay in the company of the villagers. Being alone was easy to him, as it was a familiar feeling.
Because of that fact, Zuko didn't know what to think when he found Katara sleeping peacefully on his bed. He hadn't spoken to her since early this morning before they had been captured by the Kyoshi warriors. He was curious as to what she was doing here.
She slept curled up on her side, long hair fanned out over the pillow her head rested on. He knew that waterbenders were deep sleepers, so put a hand on Katara's arm and shook her to wake her up instead of calling her name. She opened her eyes slowly, recognition coming to her after a moment of looking at him.
Zuko pulled his hand away and said, "What are you doing here?"
She sat up and looked around the room, blinking multiple times as she did so, like she was trying to remember. When it appeared that she finally had, she said, "I came to give you this." She gestured to the plate of sushi next to the cot. "You kind of stormed off before you could eat anything," she laughed nervously.
Katara pushed the plate toward him, but he made no move to eat anything. "Thank you," he said finally after a moment of silence.
She stared at him, and he wondered if she was wondering if his gratitude was simply for the food or for keeping the details of their journey just between them. Honestly, Zuko wasn't quite sure either. Both, he would guess.
Katara eventually responded to his thanks in kind and stood up. She walked to the exit, but paused and turned around. But before she could say anything, Zuko heard the voice of the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors calling the waterbender's name.
She turned her head back to Zuko after looking for the location of the voice's owner and offered a small smile. "See you later," she said, but it sounded unsure, almost like a question.
Zuko gave her a curt nod, and she left the room. He went to the open window, where he could see Katara's retreating form. The Kyoshi Warrior was standing in the entryway of a home across from the one Zuko was in.
He watched as the waterbender walked to the other girl and slipped into the building. The auburn haired warrior paused before going inside also, noticing him watching and sending him a glare.
Zuko scowled and turned away. He couldn't wait to get off of this island, away from its people and warriors, and finally reach the South Pole. Then, he would return Katara to her home. But then what?
It bothered Zuko greatly that he did not have any answer to this.
A/N: Apparently, I'm a roll with this updating thing.
As always, thanks for reading!