Chapter Twelve
"I never knew chili kept so well," Katara remarked as she ate the reheated dish.
Zuko shrugged, not letting his relief show. He had been relieved enough when she'd eaten the first time・he'd expected the waterbender to reject the spicy food at the first taste. Her continued endurance made him wonder if he was really as bad a cook as he'd imagined.
At least I can do that much right, he thought, biting into his own chili. It was bland by Fire Nation standards. "So, how exactly were you guys planning on facing my father?"
Katara hesitated, glancing up at him with wary blue eyes. So she still doesn't trust me. He let his gaze fall to his steaming bowl of chili.
"We were going to invade the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun."
"Clever, but it won't work."
Katara's voice turned sharp. "Why not? Firebending will be useless. Aang will be able to face the Fire Lord with the three other elements, and the war will be over."
"It won't work because my father's not that stupid," he said simply. "He'll know there's a solar eclipse coming・the Fire Nation has celestial calendars to predict that kind of stuff, and any such occurrence would be noted well ahead of time. My father, and the rest of the royal family, will be tucked away safely somewhere your group can't get to them. And even if you did manage to navigate the labyrinth of passages under the palace, how do you expect to get past the guards? There will be hundreds of non-benders protecting the palace that day."
"We've fought with worse odds before."
He frowned. The "we" obviously didn't include him, even though he was sitting across from her, and no one else was present. Her head is still with the others. She may have forgiven me, but she'll never acknowledge me as one of them. "Even if you were to get past them, and find your way to my father, and kill him in the eight minutes you have before the solar eclipse is finished, you would have to kill or capture Azula, and any remaining heirs before their firebending returned, and survive the trip out of the palace. By that point, the firebending will be back, and you'll have a thousand fireballs shooting at you from the castle gates. Now tell me, Katara, does that sound like a good plan to you?"
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You don't have to be so negative."
"The plan is suicidal, of course I'm being negative."
"Appa will be waiting for us. We'll get out of there."
Ah, now I'm included in the "we." He sighed. "The plan might work if you had the whole force of the Earth Kingdom behind you, but with Ba Sing Se under Fire Nation control, I don't see how you'll even be able to get past the first lines of Fire Nation defense."
"Who's side are you on, anyway?"
He stood up, almost knocking over his bowl. "Yours, if you haven't forgotten! I gave up everything to be on your side, to fight with the Avatar. I'm going up against my father, my sister, my country, all for the sake of doing the right thing. Do you even realize how much I stand to lose if the Fire Nation wins this war?"
Something like shock took over the waterbender's face, followed quickly by fury. "You don't realize how much I've already lost."
"What have you lost, Katara? Your mother? I think we covered that one. Your father? At least he didn't permanently scar you and send you off on a wild goose chase across the world. Your country? Last I checked, there's still a Northern Water Tribe for you to go back to. And what about your life, Katara? You obviously haven't lost that. If we lose this war, you might survive to fight again.
"But if we lose . . . I'm a traitor to the Fire Nation and a known enemy of the Earth Kingdom. If we lose, I'm not just going to be banished, or burned, or imprisoned. I'm going to be killed."
Some of the fire in her eyes died, and she turned away from him. "I'm going up on deck to steer this ship. Do you have a particular destination in mind?"
"Land. I just want to land so I can get off this stupid boat."
She didn't respond to that, but when she went on deck, the trapdoor slammed so hard it bounced before snapping shut.
Why couldn't I get stuck with the peaceful Air Nomad, or the practical peasant with the boomerang? Why did I have to get stuck with the confrontational waterbender with a grudge? He glared up at the trapdoor a moment longer, then snatched the empty bowls from the table and went to the sink to clean them. As the cool water washed over his hands, he calmed a bit. Menial tasks like this usually annoyed him, but his mind seemed to drift off as he scraped the leftover bits of chili down the drain. But how else am I supposed to look for the Avatar? He'll be a lot more likely to let me teach him if he knows I haven't mistreated his girlfriend. If I try to find him without that much, though, I'm in for a fight.
He sighed. Katara's temper irked him, but he couldn't blame her for it. His own temper was worse. How many times had he let his emotions get the better of him? Even with Uncle Iroh, the only person in the world he could turn to for anything. He remembered getting angry over a lost Pai Sho tile, over some hot tea in the Earth Kingdom, over their place in the third ring of Ba Sing Se. I can't even be nice to people who actually like me.
He realized he'd been rinsing the same dish for almost two minutes. He lifted it from the sink and wiped the water off it so he could put it with what remained of the plates. I was just trying to be practical. The plan wouldn't work. Father would never be so stupid to leave himself vulnerable during an eclipse. I'm the only one who knows where in the palace they'll be hiding, and my firebending will be gone just like theirs.
Something went still in his mind for a moment, and the washcloth in his hand stopped moving over the second bowl. My firebending will be gone, but that's not my only defense. He thought of the Dual Dao Blades he'd used as the Blue Spirit. They'd been confiscated when Azula had captured him, along with all his money and supplies, but that didn't mean he was out of options. I could find a new pair of swords, then kill Ozai and claim the throne.
The thought repeated over in his thoughts a few times, dwindling his excitement. A shiver ran down his back. I can't believe I just imagined that, he thought, shaking his head. Kin-slaying was an abominable crime in any nation. No one would follow him if he killed his own father for power. Even when he'd dishonored the family, his father had opted to banish him rather than kill him for his alleged insolence.
Shocked by his own thought processes, he put away the last of the dishes and went to the sleeping quarters to lie down. He intended only to take a few moments to clear his head, but he must've fallen asleep, because the next thing he remembered was the sound of the trapdoor on deck swinging open. His eyes flashed open, and he sat up, lifting his arms in preparation for an attack. He let them down after a moment, realizing it was just Katara coming down from the deck. Her footsteps were light and quiet in the kitchen, probably in an attempt not to wake him.
He rolled off the mattress and headed out to the kitchenette.
Katara had gone fishing while she'd been above deck; she was spearing the fish with a spit she'd found in one of the cupboards. The skin under her eyes looked swollen and red, and every few seconds, she sniffed.
Sick or crying? he wondered as he approached. She continued spearing fish as if he wasn't there. "Do you want me to start the stove up for you?"
She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the wall.
"I'm sorry about this morning," he said. "I shouldn't have been so blunt."
Still, she said nothing. Her hands searched the cupboards until she found a pair of spark rocks. Her movements were mechanical as she struck them together to light the kindling on the stove.
"Are you still mad at me?"
Finally, she looked up at him. "No, I'm not mad."
"Have you been crying, or something?"
"No . . ." She positioned the fish over the fire, letting the orange fingers nip at the creature's scaly skin.
"What's wrong, then?"
"We were kind of working under the assumption the invasion plan would work. If it doesn't . . . I don't know what else we're going to do."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's not your fault. Better safe than sorry, I guess."
He watched her turn the fish so the skin didn't burn over the uneven heat. "Aren't you supposed to the optimistic one?"
She shrugged.
"It's not just the invasion plan that's worrying you, is it?"
Katara didn't answer.
"Is it the others then? Are you worried they didn't escape the catacombs? Or are you afraid we won't be able to find them, or . . ."
"After we were taken prisoner, Azula told me that Aang was dead. I didn't believe her, of course. She's lied before, and she must know by now that's the perfect way to get to me, except . . . You said she told you the same thing."
"Yes, but Azula always lies. And she's smart enough to know that we were likely to meet and compare notes later on, so she fed us the same story. I'm sure・"
"Except what if she wasn't lying? If Aang is really dead, that's the end of everything. The Fire Nation will win the war, and Sokka and Toph and I will probably be hunted down by bounty hunters within the next couple of years. You said yourself that you'll be killed outright. If Aang is dead, that's the end of hope for the world."
"Azula was lying," he said. "We'll find Aang and the rest of your friends, and we'll defeat the Fire Lord. You just have to believe that."
"But what if it wasn't a lie?" she almost yelled. "If I had been quicker, if I hadn't gotten caught up in the catacombs in the first place, he would've never been down there . . ."
"And then Azula would've just chosen a different point of ambush. It's Azula, for Agni's sake. It's impossible to win."
Katara looked down at her feet, setting the fish aside, her expression so heartbroken that he felt an urge to reach over and hug her. But he didn't know how Katara would react to the unexpected embrace, or if she was even stable enough to accept a hug.
The moment stretched on, growing steadily more awkward. Katara's almond shaped eyes were shiny with unshed tears, but the stubborn liquid wouldn't fall. He could see she was trying to keep it together, to be strong enough to bear whatever emotional burden she felt.
A single tear slipped down the side of her face, and his control wavered. He lifted one hand to her dark skin and wiped the tear away with his thumb. That was all he meant to do, he told himself, as she rushed into his arms and sobbed into his shoulder. Sometimes he forgot the girl was a year younger than him, that she hadn't grown up in the Fire Nation where such displays of weakness were quickly snuffed out, that only a year ago, she'd been just as helpless in a fight as a sparrowkeet with a broken wing. For a long time, he'd imagined her only as a warrior, a waterbending master able to slice him in half if she chose, or freeze him to a wall.
But she was a girl, too, and when he ran his hand down her head to comfort her, the soft ripples of her hair flowed through his fingertips like water. He ran his fingers down a single wavy section, smoothing it out only to have it spring back as he reached the end.
She didn't cry long. His shoulder muffled a few sobs, but as soon as those were done, the worst was over. After another minute, her arms slid down off his neck and fell to her side. She raised an arm to wipe her tears away. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't worry about it."
She looked up at him for a moment, scrutinizing his face with her critical sapphire eyes. He edged back, uneasy under her sharp gaze. But whatever she was looking for, she must've found, because her face softened.
"I keep trying to look for reasons not to trust you," she said. "But you really are a nice guy, aren't you?"
"Well, I wouldn't say 'nice.'"
She picked up the fish she'd set aside and continued roasting them over the stove. She said nothing else about his apparent niceness.