Author's Notes:
Good news, everyone: we transition back to the Zuko/Katara plotline in this chapter. Bad news: I've been super busy lately and there's no sign of that trend reversing itself, which means updates are unfortunately going to remain sporadic for the time being. That said, I'll do my best to not go more than two or three weeks between chapters.
Chapter Thirty-Six
His body hadn't ached this much since the morning after his first training session with Suki. Sokka drew the thick blankets tighter around his body, breathing in the familiar, musky scent of tanned pelts and furs.
"Hey, you're awake!"
He groaned. Where does Aang get all this energy? "Still tired. Wake me up in another hour."
"Give him a moment. He's still recuperating," said a kindly voice. Sokka stilled in surprise. The timbre of the voice was unmistakably that of an elderly woman, but although the cadence and frailty were familiar, the voice itself was not.
"Who . . . ?" he asked, mind thick. How long had he been asleep? He'd never been a morning person, but today, his mind seemed unusually sluggish.
"Oh, yeah," Aang said. Sokka opened his eyes and saw the airbender smiling down at him. "This is Yugoda—you've been staying in the healing hut since the storm."
Sokka blinked, momentarily confused, and then the words clicked. The storm. Searching for Katara. The frigid water swallowing him up. Yue . . . She was never really there. Was she? Slowly, he sat up, testing his aching muscles. "How long have I been out? What about Katara? Is she—" He broke off when Aang's smile faltered.
"We haven't found her," the airbender said, looking away. "Appa and I went looking again as soon as the worst of the storm was over, but . . ."
"But the waves would have washed away any signs of the fleet," Sokka finished, shoulders sagging as he extricated himself from the heavy furs. I didn't drown, but I should've still frozen to death. How did I survive? He glanced at Aang. Had he somehow dragged Sokka back from the Spirit World? Had Yue intervened? Could she? Or was there a mundane, logical reason he hadn't died?
"I'll bring your clothes," Yugoda said, stepping out.
As soon as she was gone, Sokka turned back to Aang. "What happened? How did I survive?"
"Well . . ." Aang fidgeted, casting his eyes about. "After I pulled you out of the water, I kind of used firebending to warm a pocket of air around you so you wouldn't freeze."
At the mention of firebending, Sokka felt something within him tighten. Firebenders had left the South Pole in ruins—left the whole world in ruins, it sometimes seemed. It was dangerous and destructive and fueled by hatred. It also helped you live, the more rational part of him said. If Aang hadn't done it, you would be dead.
"I didn't—" Aang said, then stopped abruptly, bowing his head. "Katara was right."
He blinked, uncomprehending. "Right about what?"
"That day I spent training with Jeong Jeong, after I burned her, I said I would never firebend again. I meant it. But when Katara found me later that day, she told me that I'd have to learn firebending eventually." Aang closed his eyes, then opened them again, looking to Sokka. "I'm the Avatar. It's my duty to master all four elements, even if one of them is dangerous. I had to accept that. I do accept that, now. But I'll understand if you don't like it."
He saved your life, he thought, even as a more cynical part of him muttered in denial. After growing up in a tribe devastated by the Fire Nation, it was hard to even think of firebending as something that could be used for good. Yet Aang had quite clearly demonstrated that it could be. Once in a while. Under special circumstances.
"We can worry about finding you a firebending teacher later," he said at last. "For now, we need to focus on finding Katara."
Aang nodded, sitting up a little taller. "Where do we look next?"
"That depends. The way I see it, there are three possibilities. The first—" he held up one finger "—is that she's escaped and started making her way to the Earth Kingdom. Without Appa, it would take her weeks to get back to the North Pole, so she'll probably seek shelter in one of the northeastern Earth Kingdom settlements. The second possibility is that she's on her way to the Fire Nation." He paused, thinking. "She wouldn't give up without a fight, and besides that, she'll be close to the water when her ship makes landfall. That's when I would try to escape, if I were a waterbender." Which, admittedly, he wasn't. But he guessed that his sister would act roughly along these lines, if she hadn't found an opportunity to get off the ship before then. "The third possibility—"
He broke off as Yugoda entered the hut carrying a bundle of his clothes. One of her acolytes—a girl of about eight—trailed after her with a tray of tea, setting it gingerly on the floor beside Sokka's bedroll. "Drink this," Yugoda said, handing him a cup made of bleached bone. "It will help ease the pain. That storm gave you quite a beating."
Reluctantly, Sokka took a sip of the tea. It had an unmistakable medicinal taste to it—willow bark, he thought, though how the Northern Water Tribe had acquired it was a mystery. Did they trade with the Earth Kingdom? Everything he'd seen so far indicated that they were even more isolated than the Southern Water Tribe, but maybe they visited some of the northern isles when they needed such amenities.
Worry about it later, he thought, watching Yugoda poke her head into a partitioned-off area to tend another patient.
"What's the third possibility?" Aang asked, lowering his voice so Yugoda wouldn't hear.
"The third possibility is that she doesn't escape—or she gets recaptured before she can get far—and she's put into some specialized Fire Nation prison for waterbenders. That's the worst possibility." Or at least the worst possibility that he was willing to discuss right now. Ever since she'd gone missing, he'd been running through several scenarios which were markedly worse than imprisonment. But something had changed in those moments he'd floated between life and death, and now that he was awake enough to work through them, he felt clearheaded for the first time since Yue's sacrifice. I've been letting the worst-case scenarios distract me from the things that I can actually plan for, he thought, forehead wrinkling. I need to focus on what I can do, right now, with the information and resources I already have.
"Okay," Aang said. "So what do we do?"
"We start in the Earth Kingdom. It's safer for us, and if Katara escapes, that's where she'll go. We can coordinate a search effort from there to cover as much ground as possible, then see if she turns up. If not, we leave signposts—messages telling her where to meet with us on a given date."
Aang raised his hand. "Won't that make it easier for the Fire Nation to track us?"
"Yes, but—" He clamped his jaw shut. "Yes. It will. But we can find a way to make the message specific to Katara—tell her to meet us at someplace we've visited, but instead of leaving the name of the town, we tell her to go back to that fortuneteller's shop, or that abbey where that bounty-hunter used her shirshu to track us. It's still a risk, but as long as we're careful, we shouldn't run into any trouble." He took another bitter swallow of tea, reconsidering. "Well, no more trouble than we usually run into."
Aang nodded. "We can start flying as soon as you're feeling better."
No time to waste, Sokka thought, standing up and stretching. Despite the tea, every muscle in his body protested, as if his lingering fatigue had settled into his bones. It probably wasn't wise to be up and about so soon after his ordeal, but all he'd really be doing for the next few days was sitting in a saddle. Unless they were intercepted by another Fire Nation ship. Which, knowing his luck, they would be. No matter where you go, no matter how fast you fly, the Fire Nation's always going to be right behind you. You accepted that when you decided to travel with the Avatar. "Start packing. We leave in an hour."
Somewhere in the Earth Kingdom: Present day.
Katara woke to the smell of woodsmoke and pine needle tea. One more day, she thought, sitting up and casting off her blanket. We might even find civilization before sunset. She pushed the thought away. When she reached the next town, she'd leave Zuko and his uncle behind to search for Aang and Sokka on her own. That should have been a relief—finally, a way out of this situation, an excuse to leave her enemies behind and return to her friends—but whenever she tried to think of it that way, she felt . . . dishonest.
It was a simple yet strange fact that Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, traitor and fugitive, hunter of the Avatar, and enemy firebender was actually pretty decent company.
Iroh sat in front of their makeshift fire pit, adding twigs a handful at a time to help the larger chunks of wood catch. The fire had died in the night, too poorly constructed to maintain even a bed of embers. Zuko had built it—he built about half their campfires—and the first few times, it had surprised her how bad he was at it. But then again, when you were a firebender, you didn't really need to worry about how you constructed your fire—if it went out, you could restart it with a flick of your fingertips.
"Where's Zuko?" she asked, sitting down and adjusting several pieces of wood with the blackened branch they'd been using as a poker.
"He went down to the river," Iroh said, tilting his head toward the gurgling stream they'd been following. "It's been a while since he left. Perhaps someone should go check on him."
Katara nodded, setting the poker down and heading toward the water. She found Zuko at the riverbank, leaning against a slender tree with one arm resting on his knee. As she approached, he flicked a glance in her direction, then went back to looking at the water. "So," Katara said, adjusting her tunic as she sat beside him, "big day, huh?"
He didn't look at her. "Yeah. Big day."
She waited for him to say something more—to acknowledge the connection between them—but he was silent. Well, what did you expect? Even on his good days, he doesn't talk much. She pinched a lock of hair between her fingers. Its shortness was finally starting to feel natural to her, though she couldn't help but feel a little pang, remembering what it had been like to cut it. After a moment, she folded her hands in her lap, watching the water flow over stone and silt, occasionally seeing the quicksilver flash of a fish darting by.
What am I doing here? she wondered, drawing her knees close to her chest. I could be packing up, getting ready for the day. We could be on our way in minutes, make it to the next town by nightfall. Why am I sitting here like I'm expecting something to happen?
Why do I want something to happen?
"Zuko, I . . ." she began, then blushed when his honey-gold eyes settled on her face. Hastily, she looked away.
"I know," he said, and a hundred unspoken promises whispered between them.
"What I'm trying to say is . . ." Come on, Katara. Spit it out. "Maybe we don't have to be enemies. Maybe . . ." She started to reach out to touch his hand.
"We can't," he said, withdrawing before she could make contact. Then, so quietly, she wasn't sure he meant her to hear, he said, "I can't."
"What if you could?" she whispered. "Just—think about it for a second. What if we could be more than enemies. If we could work together—"
"You're still asking me to betray my family. My country."
They betrayed you first, she thought, heart wrenching. Your sister wants to imprison you. You're a fugitive from your own people. The only family you have left is your uncle. What good will hunting Aang do, even if it does somehow help you regain your honor? She clenched her jaw, swallowing the words back before they could break free. Zuko had made his choice, and she couldn't sway him from it, even now.
"I will change things," he said, voice soft. "I'll stop this war. I'll convince my father to accept the gains we've already made. I can make things better. But before I can do that, I have to regain my honor."
"There has to be another way."
"There isn't." His nostrils flared, but in his eyes, all she saw was pain. "There isn't," he repeated, as if apologizing. He turned away from her as he stood. "We should get going."
Katara stared into the water, picking at the grass on the riverbank as a torrent of conflicting feelings surged within her. After a minute or so, she rose to her feet and headed back to their campsite, where Iroh and Zuko were packing up their few belongings. Katara joined them, dousing the fire with her bending water and gathering up her bedroll. Only one more day, and I can go back to my friends, she thought.
She wished she could feel happy about it.
It was a long morning. Zuko was more sullen than ever after their talk by the river, and Iroh had evidently sensed his dark mood, as he also remained quiet. Maybe it was better that way; the silence gave Katara time to think. It shouldn't bother her so much that she'd failed to sway Zuko to her side. It had been a long shot anyway. And she certainly shouldn't feel guilty about leaving to search for her friends. Her first few days with Zuko, she'd wanted nothing more than to go off on her own, though circumstances had forced her to stay. And she definitely, absolutely shouldn't feel this sense of longing, as if Zuko's absence would leave a hollow place in her heart. They had each chosen their paths, and the next time they met, they would be enemies once more. To acknowledge anything beyond mild disappointment seemed a betrayal of herself, of her family and friends.
And yet . . . there was good in him, wasn't there? In his own way, Zuko wanted the best for the world. If only I could make him see that joining Aang is the right way.
Morning bled into midday, and her thoughts churned in the space between what was right and what made sense. Trying to align the two was a fruitless exercise; she knew that. She couldn't stay with him, and he couldn't stay with her, so what choice did they have, really, except to part ways?
For their last meal together, they had stale traveling cakes and pine needle tea. Rather than setting up an actual fire, Iroh heated the kettle with his firebending, and they ate in the middle of the path. None of them said more than a handful of words, and they began walking again after only a few minutes. Though their late lunch had hardly been substantial in spirit, it gave them energy enough to set a strenuous pace for most of the afternoon, and several hours passed before Zuko came to an abrupt halt in front of her.
"There," he said, pointing. Katara lifted her head, feeling the first surge of excitement she'd experienced all day when she saw a thin tendril of smoke through the trees.
Her excitement quickly faded when she realized it was not the insubstantial, pale smoke of a chimney, but the greasy black smoke of burning buildings.