Chapter 25
Vallon looks up suddenly as Zuko storms his way into the tent. The Fire Lord looks down at the seated earthbender for a moment and then begins to pace, agitated beyond his ability to communicate.
Zuko stops and glares at the other man who makes it worse by simply looking innocently back at him. It's as if the scoundrel doesn't even know what he's done!
The pacing starts again and Vallon watches with apprehension. Oh yeah, it was a mistake to kiss Katara. He knew they were probably being watched. Not only did he injure her trust in him, he's now got a fire-spitting monarch stalking around his tent like a tiger-wolf.
Zuko faces Vallon in a commanding stance, the restless pacing over for now. The earthbender looks up at him with a level eye and a silent spark of tension passes between them.
"Get up." The Fire Lord snarls between clenched teeth.
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"You're going to love Appa!" Katara grabs Yukio's hand and pulls him toward the campsite.
"I don't usually like animals bigger than I am. Unless I'm shooting at them to eat later." Yukio says.
"Appa's not for eating, Yukio." Katara eagerly quickens her pace.
"I didn't say I was going to eat him. I was just saying…" Yukio stops in his tracks, dragging her to a halt as well. "Appa's the Avatar's isn't he?"
"Yes. Why?" Katara looks at the boy, puzzled.
"The Avatar's here? In our camp?" Yukio's widened eyes show his anxiety.
"Don't be nervous about meeting Aang. You're kindred spirits. Except for the killing and eating animals thing. For that you're a kindred spirit of my brother. Come on." She begins pulling him again and he reluctantly follows.
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Aang climbs down from Appa's saddle and gives his old friend an affectionate pat on the nose.
"Good flying, buddy. I think we made it in record time." He laughs at the complaining groan that reverberates from the huge, furry beast.
"Well, if it isn't Twinkle Toes and Sheddy." Toph appears from the trees.
"Hey Toph. I thought I'd come and see if there was anything I could do to help." Aang gives her a hug.
"Where's Ty Lee?" The General asks.
"She had to stay at the palace. Ambassador Xin arrived this morning. I wanted to come and tell Zuko myself." Aang says.
"He won't be happy." Toph shakes her head.
"Yeah. I wasn't too happy to see Xin either. He gives me the creeps."
"Me too. I can't sense him. That means he either never lies or he's pathological." Toph agrees.
"Or that he's learned to control his body enough to hide his true intent." Aang adds ominously.
"Or that." Toph grumbles putting her arm through his and leading him through the trees to the campsite.
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Sokka stands on the deck of the Yue and looks at Imiyo through his glass. Such a nice, calm, little town, it's too bad the Fire Lord will die here, he thinks pleasantly.
Of course he can't get any closer to the port than he is now because it's full of Fire Nation ships. As usual he's frustrated by this diabolical nation and it's cunning overlord. Never mind that nobody was expecting him, and of course the Fire Lord would travel with a fleet even in his own waters, Sokka prefers to see this inconvenience as a personal slight.
"Should I ready the landing boats? Lt. Numu asks.
"Sure, why not?" Sokka purposely responds in the way that his uptight Lieutenant hates. At least he's still got that he smirks to himself.
For a second Lt. Numu wonders if he's supposed to answer the question, but then he realizes he's being toyed with. He bows briefly to Sokka and moves to give the order.
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Vallon gets slowly to his feet.
"I'm not going to fight you Fire Lord." He says warily.
"Not even to defend yourself?" Zuko sneers.
"Why bother?" Vallon shrugs. "If I injure you my current situation gets worse. If I kill you I've committed a capital offense. I'll take the beating."
"You're pretty confident in your ability to either hurt or defeat me." Zuko says.
"I didn't say that." Vallon replies.
"Then you're confident you can take the pain I can inflict."
"I never said that either. I have no desire for any of those options."
"Why did you lie about having a relationship with Katara?" Zuko growls.
"I didn't lie about anything. Why did you lie about her being spoken for?"
There is silence now as the two men eye each other. Zuko closes his hands into fists and smoke curls from them. Vallon, to his credit, maintains eye contact and a calm, steady demeanor.
"She's not spoken for." Zuko says quietly. "Not officially."
"Well then until it is official she's free to choose." Vallon twists the rhetorical knife.
Zuko feels the breath go out of him like he's been punched in the stomach. He'd known Katara would have to look at other options, but he had hoped to receive a wedding invitation that he could decline or an announcement he could burn. Whatever he thought might happen, it was supposed be far in the future and even farther away by distance. It was absolutely not supposed to happen under his nose in the Fire Nation with his own prisoner.
"Has she chosen?" The Fire Lord asks tightly.
"That's something you should ask her." Vallon responds, tempting fate and Zuko's temper.
"Answer me!" The firebender roars and the air surrounding them instantly becomes suffocatingly hot before returning to normal.
"She hasn't chosen me, if that's the answer you're looking for. If there were other possibilities besides the two of us, I can't speak for those."
"You were kissing." Zuko's narrowed eyes pin Vallon, demanding truth.
"I was kissing. She was distracting while she prepared an ice dagger to threaten me with." Despite the danger to his physical wellbeing, Vallon's mouth curves into an amused grin.
Zuko's relief is palpable. He feels like he could laugh out loud, but pulls himself together before he can do anything so telling. He fixes Vallon with a glare.
"You forced your attentions on her?" His voice is still threatening and infused with a new anger.
"Not exactly. I'd hoped she would reciprocate. She didn't." Vallon explains.
"Why did she feel the need to threaten you with a dagger?"
"Probably because I'm nearly three times her size and she wanted to make a bold statement. Telling me she's in love with you and not me didn't keep me from kissing her, so I guess she thought I wouldn't stop if she asked me to. I would have." He's not lying, but he remembers pulling her down to him and wrapping her in a tight embrace. She was right to be alarmed he decides, regardless of the fact that he definitely would have stopped at her request. She couldn't have known that.
"Never touch her again." Zuko commands.
"She already said that. We're still friends, you know. She holds no grudge. I've promised her I won't make any more passes. She accepted my promise. I hope you will too." Vallon wonders why there was no reaction from the Fire Lord to Katara's admission of love. Maybe he so distrusts the earthbender that he assumes he's lying.
"You'll never be alone with her again as long as you're in the Fire Nation. And you're probably going to be here for a long, long time." Zuko says menacingly and he leaves the tent.
Vallon takes in a breath. He really screwed up this time. He's pretty sure nobody can help him now.
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Three steps from Vallon's tent Zuko is struck with clarity. The earthbender's words are finally sinking into the Fire Lord's brain and taking hold.
Telling me she's in love with you and not me…
He stops walking and nearly turns to go back into the tent. Happy for what little presence of mind he has left, he knows he can't go ask the earthbender if he'd been telling the truth. How pathetic that would make him! And what if he was telling the truth? What difference would it make? Just the small satisfaction that comes with knowing the woman he most adores loves him. Without hope of a future however, that satisfaction is infinitesimal.
Looking up Zuko sees Katara with Yukio in tow, running up to the Avatar and hugging him joyfully.
When did he get here?
The Fire Lord shakes his head at what now seem like alien surroundings. It's as if he went to sleep fifteen minutes ago and woke up in a parallel universe he doesn't recognize.
"Hey Fire Lord. It looks like it really is a party." Toph grins as Zuko joins the group.
"Avatar." Zuko bows to Aang.
"Fire Lord." Aang returns the bow, smiling.
"Have you met Prince Yukio yet?" He puts a proud hand on his cousin's shoulder.
"I think I was just about to." Aang says grinning at the boy who shifts nervously.
"Hi…Avatar." Yukio says quietly to the only airbender he's ever seen.
"Hi. Call me Aang." He says with good humor.
"Okay." Yukio smiles faintly.
"Good. You want to meet Appa?" Aang asks.
Yukio looks at Katara and receives a nod of encouragement.
"Does he bite?" The boy asks.
"He bit this mean man once and threw him in a lake, but he had it coming." Aang says, leading the boy away.
"Tell him who it was Aang." Katara calls after them laughing.
Aang tells Yukio and they see the prince stop short and look up at the Avatar in disbelief. Then he starts walking again with his smile taking up the vast majority of his face.
"Katara, I want to talk to you." Zuko says suddenly, before she can hurry off.
"Um, I really should…" She starts irritatingly.
"You're not going anywhere. I've been chasing you down all day. First it's Vallon's injuries then it's Toph's womanly problems, you're avoiding me." He says, exasperated.
"Toph's womanly problems?" The General asks, bemused.
"Well, I…" Katara's having a little trouble breathing now.
"You're coming with me." Toph orders grabbing her best friend's arm and pulling her to a small, secluded clearing away from the campsite.
"Toph, stop it!" Katara tries to pull away.
Suddenly her feet are bound in rocks.
"This is ridiculous!" The waterbender places her hands on her hips.
A boulder slides up behind her and Toph nudges her down to a sitting position.
"Clever." Zuko emerges from the trees. "I should have tried something like that."
"Whatever you have to say to each other I want it said." The General demands. "This tension is going to ruin the party."
"What is this party you keep talking about?" Zuko asks as she strides past him.
"You can release my feet Toph." Katara says miserably. "I won't go anywhere."
The earthbender stops, turns, makes a motion with one hand and then disappears into the woods. The rocks binding Katara dissolve and she looks down into her lap, painfully aware of Zuko looming over her.
"Please sit down. I feel like a five year old being scolded by my father." She tells him.
Suddenly a boulder slides up as if from out of nowhere and comes to a stop near Katara.
"Go away Toph." The Fire Lord calls.
They hear the General's trademark laugh fading away in the forest.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" Zuko asks her after he's sat down.
Katara shrugs. "I'm not sure. I just felt like I needed to."
He studies her for a moment, trying to decide how to start. There's so much to say, but only a little of it truly relevant. He suddenly wishes he were mad at her. He's good at yelling. Not so good at meaningful communication.
"It's illegal for the Fire Lord to marry anyone who isn't fully of Fire Nation descent." He dives right in.
Katara's blood turns to ice in her veins. She can almost hear it crack as she raises her head to look at him.
"I see." She says quietly, looking away quickly when their eyes meet.
Zuko watches his beautiful waterbender. He can practically see the thoughts whirling through her brain as she settles on dignity and straightens her back, lifting her chin; she presents an image of pride and self-confidence like nothing can hurt her. He knows her better than that and loves her even more for the effort.
"I don't think the Water Tribe has any laws like that. At least not the Southern Tribe. I could be wrong though." She still doesn't meet his gaze, preferring to look across the clearing at an interesting pine tree.
Another moment passes where neither speaks. Zuko knows it can't go unsaid. It's best to have it all out in the open, he's certain, but it won't make any of this easier.
"If I could marry for love, Katara." He begins and at last her eyes find his. "I'd marry you."
He could stand up, take off his clothes and hang upside down from a tree limb and she wouldn't be more surprised than she is right now.
"Really?" She asks. "Really?"
Zuko laughs, nodding. "Really. Really."
Katara furrows her brow and looks at her hands.
"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse." She muses.
"I know. But I couldn't stand the thought of you going back to the South Pole thinking I'd rejected you."
"I did think that. I thought I must be the worst kisser ever." She admits.
"Never think that." Zuko insists.
Katara blushes gorgeously. He shakes his head, grinning in anticipation of what he's about to say…and do.
"You are a spectacular kisser." He kneels in front of her and places his hands gently on the sides of her face. He tenderly brushes her lips with his own, memorizing each sensation, knowing this will be the last time.
Katara closes her eyes to hold back the tears that sting the corners of her lids and melts into the kiss as he draws her closer to him, joining their lips firmly together. She opens her mouth to him and he savors the taste of her. Wrapping her arms around his neck she closes the scant remaining distance between them and they hold on tight, searing their memories for those times in the future when they can dream of what might have been.
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"So are you okay with this?" Toph asks Aang quietly.
She's just told him what she suspects has been going on between their friends, and even though Aang is with Ty Lee now, he was certainly obsessed with Katara not that long ago. She fully expects the Fire Lord and her sister in spirit to return to the campsite betrothed. Or at least dating.
"So you think they're going to get married … or something?" The Avatar asks gloomily.
"With Sweetness I would bet on marriage rather than 'something.'" Toph says trying to lighten the mood.
"I have no right not to be okay with it, so I guess I'd better be." Aang shrugs uncomfortably. Katara's not his, never was and he knows it. But something of that old possessiveness remains. He's the one that got her necklace back. He's the one who got her to the North Pole to learn waterbending. He's the one who gave her up to master the avatar state.
"What about Ty Lee? Doesn't she make things a little easier to handle?" The General reminds the boy to count his blessings.
"Yeah." He blushes and Toph awards herself points upon feeling his increasing heartbeat.
"Well that's that then isn't it?" She starts to get up.
"Um…Toph," He stops her and she sits back down, "Ty Lee and I haven't… you know."
"I wish you wouldn't tell me these things. I really don't want to hear about it." Toph sighs.
"It's not that I don't want to," Aang ignores her protest.
"It's just that you respect her too much, or you're afraid of commitment…yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I said, I wish you wouldn't tell me these things." Toph grumps.
"No I do respect her and I'm not afraid of commitment…per se." He continues to ignore her request. "She won't let me."
Toph laughs out loud.
"Well good for her! I'd say that 'per se' is the key to the whole thing." She stands up and punches Aang on the arm, almost knocking him from the log they've been sitting on. "Think about it."
She walks away laughing. Aang shakes his head rubbing his injured arm.
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Katara sits with her back leaning comfortably against Zuko's chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her and his chin resting on the top of her head.
"Yes, you're definitely a spectacular kisser." Zuko moves to nuzzle the back of her neck and she giggles, bending her head forward to give him more access.
"Well, I still wouldn't know that, not being the one kissed by me." She counters.
"Take my word for it." He squeezes her quickly to punctuate the command. "When I found out you were kissing Vallon all I could think was that he was feeling your lips against his and how exquisite that is and I hated him for it."
"He was kissing me, not the other way around." She corrects.
It hits them both at the same time and he closes his eyes in regret when he feels her stiffen in his arms.
"How did you know about Vallon?" She turns to face him.
Zuko doesn't answer right away and that speaks volumes to the waterbender.
"You were spying on us!" She stands abruptly.
"Him. I was spying on him." Zuko says, rising warily.
"Why? What did you expect him to do? Trick me into helping him escape?" Oh, she's spitting mad now.
"I don't know what he's capable of, so sure maybe he was trying to trick you into helping him." Zuko's ire is also starting to rise.
"You think I'm pretty stupid don't you? I already thought of that after the first pass he made. I had every intention of thwarting any escape plans he might have when I went in there the second time. When your spies watched the whole thing."
"One spy. Just a guard really, and he didn't watch anything, he looked in the tent and saw you kissing. That's what he reported to me and that's all. I didn't know you threatened him with an ice dagger until Vallon told me."
Oops.
"You talked to Vallon about me?!" Zuko suddenly thinks how lucky they are not to be next to the stream at this moment for it would certainly be overflowing its banks.
"Well, I would have liked to talk to you personally but you've been running away from me all day!" Katara suddenly thinks how lucky they are not to be near one of the camp torches for it would certainly burn down the forest at this point.
"Well I just…grrrr." Katara combs her fingers agitatedly through her hair and grumbles her continued annoyance. She gives him a quick glare and stomps off through the trees toward the campsite.
Zuko follows angrily at a safe distance, thinking this fight sure makes him grateful they can't be together. Maybe the ancient lawmakers were on the right track. Perhaps they knew that the only happiness comes from the commitment to one's own people. Certainly no good can come from people commingling their cultures with the resultant fights and resentments.
Even as he snaps the flap of his tent closed with enraged fervor he knows he'd rather spend the rest of his days fighting with Katara than spend even one day with an agreeable, easy-going woman of his nation.
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Katara sits in her tent, exhausted from having beaten her bedroll to an imaginary bloody pulp.
The problem is she knows it wasn't outlandish for Zuko to be spying on Vallon. She had fancied herself one of the spies however and finding out she was one of the subjects of the spying makes her feel rather distrusted. And humiliated.
And for him to talk to Vallon about her just further infuriates her. That he did it out of jealousy is just…just… While she can't help being annoyed at his presumption of dominion over her private life, she can't deny her pleasure at his envy. Which just makes the whole thing that much more maddening.
"Miss Katara," Captain Chin's voice comes from outside her tent.
"Come in." She says straightening her clothes and brushing her hair back from her face. She quite exerted herself with her attack on the bedding.
"Please forgive the interruption, I've just gotten word that your brother's ship is anchored just outside the Imiyo harbor. He's told my man at the docks that he's come to take you home."
On the other side of the campsite Bokkusu is giving the same news to Zuko.
"That's fine." He says flatly at the same time she utters the same words in her tent.
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"Cousin." Yukio enters Zuko's tent a short time later to find the Fire Lord meditating. "Oh, sorry."
"That's okay." Zuko looks up and smiles wanly. "What is it?"
"Aang wants to take me for a ride on Appa, but I thought I should get your permission first." The boy says, eyeing his paler than usual cousin worriedly.
"You can go. Just hold on tight." Zuko agrees and closes his eyes again.
"Are you okay?" The prince asks.
"Of course. It's been a long couple of days. I'm ready to get back to the palace. Have fun."
Dismissed, Yukio leaves the tent and makes a beeline for Katara. This time he announces himself before entering and finds her lying on her unrolled bedding with her arm over her eyes.
"Katara? Are you asleep?" He asks tentatively.
"No. What can I do for you?" She asks without raising her head.
"Do you want to come with Aang and me for a ride on Appa?" He looks closely at her. She's almost as pale as Zuko was and that's saying something since her normal skin tone is three or four shades darker to begin with.
"No thanks. Have fun. Hold on tight." She says vaguely.
"Okay." He says warily, backing out of the tent.
Not good. Not good at all.
Once again Yukio is reminded that he's just a kid and grown-ups are complicated beyond his ability to comprehend.
He decides that Vallon is just the person to explain this situation to him and makes a plan to visit the prisoner after the ride on the bison. The earthbender will help the prince to make things right, he's sure of it.
Thus armed with an agenda he gleefully forgets his troubles as only children can and races to the Avatar's fuzzy friend.