Draco thought back on all the time he'd spent inside the Room of Hidden Things, working away at that Vanishing Cabinet. Sometimes Pansy would show up and steal his attention away from it. She had a part in keeping him together enough to get this far. A big one. If she hadn't been there to do that, he was certain he would have cracked. There was no telling how bad things could have got, but that didn't matter. Not anymore.
His repeated failed attempts to get the cabinet to work drove him to frustration on many occasions. That was always when Pansy would show up, like she knew. He liked that about her. The way she left him alone when he wanted privacy to do his work, and always showed up right on queue when he didn't. She'd take him to a very moth eaten and dusty sofa they'd found in there, sit him down, and take him away from his troubles for a while.
It was a very exciting phase in their lives. That room was like a safe space away from everything and they spent a lot of days and nights in there. Since that night in the Prefect's bathroom where they left their virginities behind, a fire burned in them that could not be satiated. He craved her all the time now. It was wonderfully exciting, learning about each other's bodies, what they liked, where they liked to be touched and more importantly - how to touch them there, and all the many more ways to tease and bring each other pleasure. That first time had been memorable and intense, but they had been very inexperienced and clumsy lovers.
Now, weeks later, he knew every fantastic inch of her and exactly how to excite her with just a subtle stroke or caress. She, likewise, could do the same to him, but often she didn't even need to touch him. She could look at him in a certain way, a special glint in her eyes, a bite of her lips, or a tilt of her head, that said very clearly, Well, come and get it.
Because of her hunger to constantly be useful to him, she learned very quickly exactly what he liked her to do and anytime she saw him frustrated or stressed, she would take him somewhere private and help him forget his troubles. Often, that was this couch because he would never show his distress to others and it was only here where he was alone that the brave mask he wore would fall away. She felt like it was a privilege to be the only one that really saw the real him.
There were a couple, actually, more than a couple, but just barely more, especially heated moments between them where they did this in places they were definitely risking being caught. An empty classroom, the Quidditch stand, one of the Herbology greenhouses, even the Slytherin common room.
That time had been a very near miss because, even though the hour was late and everyone else had gone to bed, someone had got up and returned to the common room to find something they'd accidentally left behind.
Knowing the risk was huge, but also being hugely excited by that, Pansy made the spontaneous, lust-over-logic, decision to go for it. She had wanted him right then, and the way he stiffened the second she touched him told her he felt the same. He was inside her mouth when that person walked through the common room so suddenly.
If he had seen them, thankfully he said nothing. He had simply grabbed a book off one of the tables and then disappeared again. With the threat of being caught successfully avoided, he and Pansy were in no way deterred from continuing their tawdry behavior. Absurdly, they were even more enamoured and the simple act of foreplay, while fun, was no longer enough. Her mouth was no longer where she wanted him. A growing wetness elsewhere demanded his attention.
She took him right there on that sofa with no hesitation. The sex filled the air and they drowned in it, completely loosing themselves in it just like before. Their quieted and muffled lust for each other built quickly to its peak until it was over. Draco finished before she could, but that was okay. Just knowing her body alone had commanded such a reaction from him left her feeling full and satisfied. It wasn't the explosive orgasmic end she had hoped for, the one she had been close to, but it had been for him, which pleased her, and it had been such a wickedly naughty deed to do in a place like this that it had intensified the experience exponentially.
They never tried anything like that again, that would have only been inviting the opportunity to be caught. In truth, it only ever happened a handful of times outside of the Room of Requirement and almost all of them happened very close to each other. For a couple days there, they simply hadn't been able to resist the temptation to see just how much they could get away with. The night in the common room, however, had been walking a very fine line indeed. It was also the last time they risked it because very soon after that, Draco had had the revelation. The big one. The one that had changed everything and had ultimately led to this very moment where he was now. Everything had been done in earnest up until this point and, incredibly even to him, had yielded surprising results.
His fool's quest, as he had begun to habitually refer to it as, had turned out to be no such thing. The fruit of his efforts now lay before him. Currently residing in the flexible space between the world of dreaming and the wakening. She was in a magically induced, comatose state and would not wake until he wanted her to. Just right now, he wasn't ready for that. It would be soon, but for now he was content to observe her. He also needed to think carefully how to progress to the next step.
This was a precious window of time he was able to make the most of by probing into her mind to learn what he could about her. He was actually able to gleam quite a bit of information. Such was always the case for the mind when it was transitioning between waking and sleeping, between shallow dreams and deep ones, when the mind became plastic and unfixed. It was like dipping his hand into a pool of water.
He stood over her now, taking careful consideration to be gentle with her. He couldn't help but see her as someone who was precious and delicate. It may have been easy enough to enter her mind, but much like an actual body of water, his presence there, even as an observer, had certain effects. He was a ripple across the surface that, if he was careless, could turn into churning tides and waves and throw her entire cognizance into disarray and madness if he wanted to. That was the very last thing he wanted. She was his prize and therefore she was his to protect; his responsibility.
The next thing to come for her wasn't going to be a good experience, she would never simply accept her situation or allow herself to reason with the likes of people like himself who had ripped her freedom away from her. But, there was a way to make that happen and before resorting to any of the more extreme methods, this first step was to win over her trust. Try to at least. Even now as he cautiously probed her memories for details, he was gathering information to that end.
It would take a lot of time to wade through and pore over every bit of information here, all of it was deeply interesting to him and although time was limited, he was able to learn a couple important details he felt would be effective.
Katara's eyes moved around at a fever pitch beneath her eyelids the whole time, never once sensing his intrusion. Her sleep was deep, very very deep. Yet there were no dreams, she was simply sinking freely into black emptiness. Completely ignorant to how exposed she was to Draco's Occlumency. That was a name she had never even heard of and had never thought her own brain and thoughts could ever be something subjected to intrusion by others. Her last thoughts had been fear induced terror when she had looked eye to eye with the one who had called himself Lord Voldemort. Part of her still sensed the constricting squeeze of that snake coiling around her, like it was still there. Like she could still feel it's scaly skin slithering over her own, making her stomach roil.
Her desperate effort to fight off and get away from the black cloaked figures was still there too, lurking just behind the fear that overwhelmed her when she saw those hideous, scarlet red eyes. It was this fear that Draco had first taken hold of, it was how he planned to control her. At least, here at the start, it was. He wasn't going to hurt her, and he wasn't going to allow anyone else to hurt her either. It was his belief that fear alone should be enough to get the job done. She would be frightened, but she would be untouched and unharmed; protected. She would be safe, and that need not ever change. Unless things became more complicated, of course.
His grasp on her fears fed him a flood of images that, while held no real meaning to him, he could tell they were of great significance to her. Out of the depths of that void, he found himself looking at great armies of soldiers, each one of them clad in similar garb of red and black armor, their helms were great red trident shaped flames with masks, not unlike the ones worn by his fellow Death Eaters, but different still. It was a plain, nondescript face of bone white. The Fire Nation he heard her voice say, quivering.
They were beyond count, spreading out far beyond what his eyes could see. Everything was burning. He could see enormous plumes of black smoke billowing across the scorched skies. An invasion? He didn't have any context to this image, but he could understand the fear associated with it. She was a waterbender and, naturally, her most feared element would understandably be it's opposite. The Fire Nation definitely looked like a vast army of firebenders. But, who were they invading? And Why?
Just below that, reaching just a little deeper, her mind spit out something a bit more familiar, although he didn't understand right away why they were familiar to him. Two boys emerged forward, both of them looking like guardians or protectors. One shared similar features and wore clothes of the same fashion as Katara. He looked like another waterbender, and his name was Sokka. He was her older brother, and they were both from. . . the name was right there, just a bit hazy and he had to make an effort to make the name come into focus before he could translate it, but he managed to do it and collected the name Southern Water Tribe.
Along with her brother, the second boy looked to be much younger than both Katara and Sokka. Barely even into his teenage years, yet already tattooed with arrows on his hands and his head. He carried with him a staff and wore what looked like monk clothes of brown, orange, and yellow. The name that accompanied this boy was Aang, and he found that there was an extremely strong connection to him that he was almost jealous of and, in that same moment, Katara let out an unexpected whimper-like sound.
That queer pang, unexpected and unbeckoned, unsteadied him. His resolve, shaken, had been subtle, but even that was enough to create even larger ripples, almost waves, across the surface of her mind. He withdrew from her, resurfacing quickly and carefully before he could knock anything else out of balance. That could have spelled disaster and for what? A twinge of envy for this Aang that seemed to be the focus of her affections? That defied all logical thinking, but it sort of made sense too. In a ridiculous, don't-think-about-it kind of way.
Now that he was looking at her, he realized that a whole bunch of names had surfaced along with the others. There was a flood of names like Momo and Appa and Grangran and one that sounded like Tough, but with a weird emphasis on the O so it sounded more like an Ah. Toph, Toph Beifong. This was the first name to be accompanied by a surname, which Draco found interesting. But the connection there wasn't nearly as strong as the one to Aang or her brother Sokka, so he dismissed it. For now, at least. He just didn't know what to do with that, so he pushed it to the side and focused on how he was going to use Sokka and Aang. That was the clearest path he could see ahead from this point and it was up to him to get her from here to where he needed her to be.
He wasn't doing this on his own anymore, which was fortunate because it would have been a very difficult task to do everything at this stage. He had entrusted a lot to Pansy because he knew she wanted nothing more than opportunities to be useful to him, and she had proven to be very capable.
This place where he now found himself with Katara was one of her contributions to the cause. Always amazing him with her unflinching belief in what he confided in her about the myth of benders, she had reasoned something with him that resonated with him.
"If you want to take away a waterbenders power," she started the next day after the revelation she and him had experienced, "you take away the water. It sounds to me like the easiest way would be to keep her somewhere dry, where there isn't any water."
The logic was hard to argue with, it made sense. They were in the realm of guesswork about something they didn't understand fully, but even then it still made sense. What does a waterbender bend if there's no water? Naturally, nothing. But, he also had another idea, one that was a measure more experimental than simply cutting off the water supply. Although, it was much more likely to be less effective, but not without its benefits. It would take time before it was ready however.
So, for a time, he had to work out the logistics of how to pull all of this off. The goal was simple enough, but the way was long and complicated. In the end, he had managed to do just that. All things considered, this was going very well for him. Far better than he ever dreamed, in fact.
Draco tentatively touched Katara's skin, pressing the back of his hand against her forehead, like he was checking for a fever. She did not react at all to his touch, which was just fine. It meant that his presence in her mind hadn't caused her any disturbance. If it had, she might have been awoken by the touch. Instead, she slept on. Her eyes were still darting around beneath her eyelids, still in the deepest part of her sleep cycle. A thing which they called the REM cycle, which stood for Rapid Eye Movement. Normally, dreams are at their most intense here, but this one was currently a blank slate. This one was just waiting for Draco to input the information and images that her dream would contain.
Dream shaping was a curious little twist of magic. One that was not so hard to perform as it was to control. It's difficulty lay in the delicacy of the task, but Draco had no worries on that score. As hard as he had worked to get this far, he had no intentions of letting it slip away now. Not by some stupid blunder on something he was more than capable of handling, and especially not when it could possibly trigger some kind of long term psychological trauma to his beloved Katara.
Draco flexed his fingers, balling them up into fists and then stretching them outward, then he produced his wand from the same place up his sleeve; he always kept it there, and he bent closer to her. Pressing the tip of it against Katara's temple. The wand barely touched her, but it was enough to make her head lull lifelessly to the side.
Draco found that simple movement to be oddly compelling. There was a certain exoticness to her that he couldn't ignore. Not only because, until very recently, he wasn't completely sure her kind even existed, but also her features and figure had that unique quality.
It was the agile and trim build of someone who was very athletic. She looked like someone who, even though she was young, had experienced plenty of hardships and was in the process of becoming battle-hardened. There were even signs of some starvation in her past. The blessing of her youth had spared her from baring most of this, but the lines under her eyes and the shrunken stomach told the truth of her story.
Draco reached out and cupped her cheek, cradling it with the compassionate care of a lover. His fingers flexed around her jawline and cheekbone, lifting her face back up. One curved lock of her hair fell as he did. The unique style of her hair included two thin braids that started behind her ears, looped in front of her eyes, and connected to her short bangs. It was a style he'd never seen before and had to assume was unique to her culture. It was a sophisticated accessory that complimented her thin cheeks quite well, but as Draco made this subtle movement, one of them fell out.
At first he felt stung, but then he realized he liked her face unobscured better. When he first heard about Katara, he knew it sounded like a female name, but he never expected her to be so elegantly attractive. Using the tip of his wand under the other braid, he gave it a small tug and, with barely any fight, it also fell away to her shoulder.
Her chest expanded as she drew in breath, there was a short pause, and then it deflated as she exhaled. A smell tickled his nose then, a sort of faint mintiness that had begun to fade from her breath. But even so, Oh dear god, Draco thought immediately. It was spearmint.
He had tasted it on Pansy's lips so often now, there could be no mistaking it. It seemed so unlikely for two women from very different lives to have that same thing in common that he was certain he must be wrong. It was an impudent thought, but even as he told himself that it couldn't possibly be spearmint, he was certain if he kissed her, that would be what he tasted there.
Even though the temptation wasn't there, the thought had come along from somewhere else all on its own anyway. Like it was just a reminder that this woman who was still blossoming and experiencing the changes of her body as she approached adulthood, all of her features becoming more and more refined and regal, was completely at his mercy. He could do any number of things if he wanted, but they were all possibilities he had no interest in indulging. She was his now, but she was his to protect, not to use like some kind of object.
His wand pressed to her temple again and he closed his eyes in concentration. Although this would be his first real time using this spell, he knew the trick to shaping an effective dream was to not fill it up with exact or definite events or details. Just vague ones that the mind could take in and further develop on its own.
He did this with a strange level of ease. Dropping in small details or words like breadcrumbs. He wanted her to show him just what she feared so much would come to pass and why it was this Fire Nation, so he catered towards that. Another important thing to remember about this type of magic was to never use anything that hadn't come from the same mind you were imposing the magic upon.
It just wouldn't take well. The mind always knew when something was foreign and it could undo the entire dream. This wasn't a problem at all for Draco, he had gained ample material to use to get a fairly accurate depiction of what he wanted her to show him.
Like the last piece in a puzzle, he finished with one final addition to the dream. A name that she had unknowingly given him along with the others, one that was tangled with conflicting emotions of loathing and wanting. It seemed like a pretty toxic thing and Draco wanted to see just what would happen.
His concentration was knifed in two all at once when spearmint filled his head again. Her breathing had begun to turn ragged and labored, As though it was suddenly a great deal harder than before. Draco opened his eyes and looked closely at her. That calm expression of peace there had begun to contort and twist. Her brow furrowed and her lips stretched back into a grimace.
The nightmares' long bitter teeth were sinking into her now and its bite would be extreme. It was one that was composed of the fears and insecurities that affected her most and was sure to be very telling of her.
Draco closed his eyes again and pushed through the paper thin barrier of her mind. Right away, his wand began to feel very warm in his hand. It wasn't just his wand though, he felt it himself as well. Like a vast dome of red and orange, heat radiating from it in intense waves, right in the very front of that place within her head that dreaming takes place, Draco found her nightmare.
It was growing fast, like some kind of vile beast, a personified demonic entity created by him and given life by her. It was feeding on her the way all nightmares do, but this one targeted and fed only on specific parts of her, the ones Draco had instructed it to. As he approached, knowing all too well how volatile it could be if he let himself be detected, he watched the nightmare double in size, shift shape into something more like a dragon, and like a beacon among the blackness, a blaze of fire and heat and ash gushed from the shape of its long, scaly, mouth.
Draco heard a scream echo from all around him. It was Katara's scream, a single note of expressed dismay, sorrow, anger, and panic. A sliver of worry made him consider that he might have made this too strong for someone with no mental that was concerning, it couldn't be helped. Not anymore.
Draco approached closer to the nightmare, the heat intensifying as he did, but it was too busy feeding itself on the fringes of her thoughts, growing ever more larger and larger, to notice him. So, he was able to actually enter into the chaotic world inside far easier than he had expected.
That delicacy of the mind thing occurred to him again as he pushed through another layer of her mind, entering into the world all her own that she had created. It was important not to forget, and as long as he didn't, he could keep himself from detection, and as long as he did that, he wouldn't be the one being attacked. He might have the key to open the door, but this was not his home, and that fact demanded respect.
/ / / /
The nightmare was exactly the world of chaos and turmoil he had expected. His feet landed on solid earth, but this place was a hazy reflection of a real landscape, like it had been painted with too little ink spread too thin. All around him were enormous fires that burned and consumed everything.
The sky itself seemed to be on fire. It was a glowing crimson red, a great ball of flame streaking across above, a large elongated tail fanning behind it. It was a comet, but one that was unlike any he'd ever heard of.
He didn't know exactly what he was looking at, but he could tell it was bad. He was standing in the street of what had once been a very large and elaborate village. All that remained of it now were smoldering piles of blackened wood and glowing embers. It was more ashes than anything else now and the air was thick and dry with it. Great grey waves of it rose up in plumes and was carried away by the winds that fueled the raging flames.
Draco stepped around what he first thought was charred debris, but after feeling a sickening crunch under his foot, he quickly realized that was not at all what it was. Dawning recognition, so gruesome it was radioactive, he stepped back when he saw it was actually several smoking bodies. They were burned to such an extreme degree, their skin and flesh had turned to leather and peeled away from the bone.
They were laying motionless, face down in the dirt, in front of the remains of what must have been their homes. He didn't look at the blood that trailed back from the bodies, he didn't need to. He could tell he was walking down a road of people who had been executed in brutal fashion.
Dragged from their homes and burned. Alive, most like.
Knowing this was all a nightmare, that none of it was real, didn't stop the feeling of his stomach folding in half. He flexed his fingers, finding them as solid as they could be, and kept going, not bothering to count the amount of bodies he had to step over or around. There were too many of them.
Hives of what had once been squalid apartments squeezed the road ahead into a narrow chokepoint and he had to climb his way over rusting scrap, junk, shattered clay tiles, and rotting struts of wood to get through.
As he did so, swinging one leg up, grabbing hold of the first thing his hand could find for balance, and pulling himself up, he heard the sound of rustling dust and dirt, soot fell in a cloud over him, and a loud crunch made him bail off the other side. He dove and landed bodily in a heap on the ground just as the resounding sound of collapsing wood and metal and shattering masonry hit his ears.
Shit, Draco thought, looking around cautiously. Something just like that could have been enough to bring undue attention down on him, but it seemed fortune was still on his side. Or maybe it was just natural for things to collapse like that when it was burning.
He got up quickly and brushed himself off. Whatever the case may be, it was important to keep moving. So far, it seemed like he was the only living person left standing, but he knew that couldn't be true. Would this Fire Nation really come through and set fire to an entire village and leave no one alive?
That was a scary thought, but again he had to remind himself this was Katara's fears, not reality. He got the feeling that this was at most a mild exaggeration however.
Draco stopped when he came to a four way. The dirt roads were crude, but sophisticated in their design as well and this was interesting to him. He looked ahead of him and saw nothing but more of the same flaming ruins, he looked to the left and also saw more of the same. But when he looked to the right, he caught just the briefest of glimpses of movement. Blue cloth and a long dark braid whipped around a corner and out of sight.
Instinct told him to turn his wrist so that his wand would be ready in his hand, he had to ignore it though. Besides, wasn't his wand already in his hand, pressed lightly against Katara's temple? Nevertheless, instincts die hard.
He turned and went down the right path, after only a dozen paces, he turned again and stopped short. Katara was standing only feet away from him, but her back was to him.
Pressing himself to the wall, taking care to keep out of view, Draco peered over his shoulder at her. He could see the way the back of her tunic fell away from her back in shreds. The skin there was stretched taut over lean, but strong looking muscles. It would have been a great look for her if it weren't for the three fist-sized black burns there. Charred, blackened, dry skin cracked and wept red tears.
She didn't appear to feel them though. If she did, she didn't react at all. Instead, she dropped to her knees. Once she did, she leaned forward and began to sift through the pile of rubble and debris in front of her.
She pulled from it what looked like a doll made from rags scavenged from fine cloths and fabrics. Except, now it was ruined. Half singed, one of its eyes dangling from one frayed thread, its fluffy innards seeping out from the tears in its stitches, and half of it dripping some thickened, sticky looking liquid. Draco didn't have to look hard to tell it was blood.
Katara held it up and screamed. Though the flames around her danced closer, licking at her clothes, she paid no mind to them. "My fault," he heard her sob, hugging the plush toy to her chest, "this is all my fault."
As if awakened by Katara's voice, Draco could now hear other screams calling out. They were distant, but sounded as though they were getting closer. Whoever they were, they were approaching and it seemed as though he wasn't the only one who could hear them. Katara looked up at the same time, looking around with an expression of intense uneasiness and nerves.
She stood up, still clutching the plush toy, and he heard her breath rattle in her chest. "They're coming back. . . " Her eyes were wide and swollen, probably caused by both the tears and the stinging ash and soot.
"Aang . . . " she said, her voice wavering and breathless, "I need you. I really really - "
She was cut off by a gout of flames that blasted apart one of the last standing walls only a twenty or so feet away from them.
"I'm sorry." She ran then and Draco had to follow her the best he could. She was fast, but she was weakened and weighed down by something that slowed her down. Though this was Katara's realm where she was ultimately more in control than any magic you could perform on her, her mind wasn't strong enough to shatter the fear she felt. This wasn't a Katara in fighting form, far from it.
He couldn't blame her for fleeing from the Firebenders, there must have been a least a dozen of them. Waterbending master or not, could she have fought off that many attackers?
Draco remembered as he continued to follow after her that she had already taken down that many Death Eaters before. Something told him Firebenders would have been a different story however.
Katara ran and ran, she kept changing her direction to elude being seen, but everytime she did, shd risked loosing her footing. She stumbled into every single wall and corner she turned, sending dust and embers flying. Her fingers seemed incapable of letting go of the toy in her hand even though she knew it couldn't help her, but she couldn't find it in her to leave it behind.
Instead, she just kept running until her lungs felt like two painful lumps in her chest. She stopped then to catch her breath, looking sharply around for movement. She was inside a room now, one that she couldn't recall ever being in before. But it was so destroyed there could be no way of knowing for sure. Now, it was a lagoon of dancing shadows, like it was haunted by ghostly flames and disturbed spirits.
Knowing it was futile, Katara held up the doll and said another silent prayer for Aang. She closed her eyes and begged for him, but she already knew he wouldn't come. That was her doing, and this was her due recompense.
"Please. . . " she breathed out, opening her eyes and looking up at the doll, like she was now asking it for help. For all the good it would do her, she may as well have. But just then, so quick she never had a chance to move, Katara felt a blistering heat singe her fingers and the doll erupted so violently, it was like a miniature explosion in front of her face.
She screamed, the remaining strips of cloth falling out of her hands along with the flaming remnants of the doll's stuffing.
Before her was a firebender she knew all too well. There was no mistaking that top knot, the fire nation army garb, and the burn that scarred half of his face.
This must be him, Draco thought as he watched from his place hidden in the shadows. He looked at the firebender who looked to be about the same age as him and wondered.
Is this Zuko?
He watched Katara shrink back from him, and he stood his ground, surveying her imperiously. The corners of his mouth turned upward. "You naive little peasant," he started, keeping his hands up in front of him and his palms facing her threateningly, "You thought you could escape from the Fire Nation?"
Katara didn't say anything, a feigned expression of determination crossed her face, but not convincingly. Her eyes gave away the illusion, there was too much weakness present there. They cast around, searching the room, but it was truly just her and him right now.
"Do you not have anything to say to me? You used to be a lot of big talk, but now," he stepped closer to her, "all I see is fear and just how empty those words were."
Zuko turned one of his hands so that the palm faced upward, and like it was the easiest thing in the world, a ball of flame ignited there. The light from it played shadows upon both of their faces, but he held it ever closer to Katara's face.
"Just a taste of what's to come."
Draco watched this firebender, fascinated. He could summon up fire like that too, but he needed a wand and he could never have held it in his hand like that.
He watched Katara stare at it and then look up at him. "Z-Zuko," she stammered, "I - "
But before she could say anything else, Zuko interrupted her. "All those times you interfered with me restoring my honor, all those times you stood in my way to the Avatar, and for what?"
His voice was calm but as he spoke it began to edge closer and closer to a yell and, as it did, the flame in his hand increased in size and intensity.
"Just to abandon him?!" He bellowed, "All this time, I believed it was me who had no honor!"
Katara had turned her face away from him, squinting against the glaring heat less than an inch from her now. Zuke closed his fingers around the fire and extinguished it in his fist. Tendrils of smoke rose from his fingertips then, and his commanding voice dropped off back down to a calm level, but sill sounded like it was ready to blow it's cap again.
"It just eats at me now, thinking about every time you acted like the moral high ground. I did what I thought was right. Can you say the same?"
Katara's lips only trembled and she offered no answer. Her legs began shaking underneath her.
"That's right, you can't. Because you abandoned your Avatar. Because you ran away and you don't have any honor. You're just a coward. Even now, you're so scared you can't even waterbend."
Katara hung her head. She still said nothing. There was nothing to say. It was all true. Just as Aang was beginning his Earthbending training, she decided to leave. The exact day was kind of confusing and hard to remember, but the guilt was still gnawing at her so hard it was making her feel physically sick.
She felt a hand press against her neck and push her against the wall behind her then. She looked up at Zuko, and then both saw and felt the heat from the flame in his hand. He hadn't extinguished it after all. His fist was still clenched in a fist, bust she had seem him use this particular move often enough to know exactly what he was doing
"There's only one thing cowards with no honor deserve in this world," he said, feeling Katars begin to struggle against his grip but he held her firm.. She knew what he was about to do. "And that," he cocked his fist back, the fire wildly charged and ready, "is branding!"
His fist came forward, stopping short of her face, but the flames erupted forward, and Katara screamed. Her voice climbed to such a terrible pitch, Draco almost had to cover his ears.
Everything shifted then, in one moment he was listening to the throws or her agony, and in the next, she was standing in shocked awe, rooted to the spot. It no longer looked like the world was burning, but it was still very much the Fife Nation they were in.
Katara was no longer wearing the blue colors of her water tribe heritage, instead she was wearing red colors and she was standing before a metal cage. It was built of solid metal with only a few small bars to see through. Inside the cage was the bald monk he recognized as Aang. She and him were just two of many onlookers. Many of the others were throwing things at the cage while Fire Nation guards stood by. Just close enough that people didn't get too lively, but did nothing to stop them from lobbing anything they had at him.
Katara said nothing, but Draco continued to watch her. Before he knew what was happening, time began to soar past them at an alarming rate. The boy in the cage barely even moved, but he grew bigger and bigger, and the cage shrank around him with every passing day.
Around the time that Aang was beginning to grow a beard, Katara covered her face and began to weep. All hope had fled from her and it was at this point that Draco decided he had seen enough.
/ / / / /
Withdrawing from her was simple, but when he emerged from her mind, he found his face only inches from hers. Her cheeks were just as wet here as they were in her nightmares.
It seemed like the way she had been taken away from her friends was a real point of contention for her. It was eating her up like mad. Draco felt a sting of guilt, but he didn't linger on that. It couldn't be helped at this point. He had plenty of other questions that needed answers and especially one more so than the others. So, he decided he had best be addressing that one and soon. As soon as he could, at least.
First thing was first though, and that was gaining her trust. Something that wouldn't be easy to do, but not necessarily too difficult either. Not when everything had been given such special consideration and when magic was on your side.
Draco checked that the binds on her arms were tightly secured but, most importantly, weren't going to cause her any kind of harm. Discomfort maybe, sure. But nothing more than that.
The last and final preparation for what would come next was to just draw two lines that would serve as alarms or warnings. There was only one way for her to go forward from where she was currently fitfully sleeping, if she went in any other, she'd find only solid stone. Otherwise, she'd have to move forward in the one direction she could. Here Is where Draco drew the first line. A starting line, he mused. Then he counted paces until he reached fifty, and drew another.
Here was a secondary line and crossing this one would mean a lot more than the first one.
"Cross this one, Katara and the real nightmare begins."