After the burning and oppressive heat of the Si Wong desert, the cool night air of Earth Kingdom countryside was like a breath of fresh air.
The sound of waves rolling up the beach soothed Katara's tense nerves like cool ice soothed burning pain. Dressed in her usual blue and white clothes – with her mother's necklace encircling her neck and her pouch slung over her shoulder – her long brown hair in her typical loop and braid style and her aqua blue eyes set above lips curving downwards, the young waterbender stood on the wet sand and gazed out over the vast expanse of water, the calm liquid reflecting the bright, round moon and all the stars in the sky, like the world's largest mirror. Though the worst effects from walking through the largest desert in the world had vanished like a stain after it had been put through a thorough scrubbing, there were still traces of red on her tanned skin.
Katara had been waiting in front of the sea – well, technically it was the Eastern Lake but it was so big, it might as well be a sea – for over half an hour now, her hands clasping and unclasping every few seconds and her lips steadily curving even further downwards. When she had arrived, Katara had been smiling in excitement, in nervousness, in hope… but not anymore.
A sudden rustle of something brushing against sand caused Katara to snap to attention and whirl around, her smile leaping back onto her face…
But she didn't see anyone.
The hope that had flared briefly inside Katara faded away as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by frustration.
She's not coming; I didn't send Xerxes back in time.
At least, that was what Katara desperately hoped was the reason for the delay.
These meetings were so risky that calling the Fire Lord stupid to his face would be safer – though, admittedly, not by much. They had to be arranged perfectly so that they both knew where to meet, how much time they could spare and had plenty of time to figure out how to sneak away from their group; Xerxes had to be sent back as soon as possible with messages so clear that you could see right through them without trying. Katara had tried to do that, as soon as she had finished reading the letter Xerxes had arrived with, she had started writing out her own… only for Sokka to run up (forcing her to stuff the letter she had just started into her tunic and shoo Xerxes away) asking – demanding – that she wash off the paint he'd coated himself in. Apparently he had gotten it from… somewhere and had been trying to do… something with it and it'd gone completely wrong in typical Sokka fashion and, just as luck would have it, it was the kind of paint that couldn't be washed off with a simple scrubbing. No, she and Aang had needed to scrub all the paint off one inch at a time… and Sokka jolted, jerked and juddered at (not to mention complained about) the cold water at every step… which did not help!
It had been difficult to make sure that they had ended up in the place Katara knew that the Xerxes would be without making what she was doing completely obvious. She had lost count of how many times she'd almost had a heart attack thinking that Aang or Sokka or Toph were getting suspicious or they were going to suggest a different route or… or something was going to go wrong! And after all her creativity and explaining and convincing to make sure they ended up in the right spot, it had taken Katara more than an hour to send Xerxes back with the message she'd hastily scribbled out after realising how much time she'd lost.
And now she was here, waiting in the moonlight and hoping that it was indeed her late message that was the reason she was still alone. It was a thousand times better than the alternative…
Oh who am I kidding? Katara thought bitterly, her sad stare morphing into a glare. If she had been caught, Xerxes wouldn't have been there in the first place. This is because I was late! She kicked out at the sand in frustration, expecting to send a clump of heavy wet sand into the air away from her… instead her foot smashed into something hard!
"Ow!" the waterbender yelped, her loneliness monetarily forgotten as she hopped on one foot, gripping her throbbing appendage. The pain wasn't anything spectacular or unfamiliar to Katara – fighting in a world-wide war against soldiers who could control fire had seen to that – but the unpleasant unexpectedness filled in the gaps. Tumbling onto her rear, Katara gritted her teeth as she rubbed her big toe.
"Of all the stupid places for a rock…" she grumbled to herself, and then she paused, straining her ears. Her brief stint of self-pitying had been interrupted by the sound of faint mewling coming from just beyond her feet. Straightening up, Katara's eyes widened in horror as she realised she hadn't kicked a rock…
She'd struck a turtle duck, a young one by the looks of it, with brown feathers, an olive green shell and deep dark eyes. It was lying on its back in the sand, webbed feet scrabbling at empty air and squeaky cries of pain coming from its beak.
"Oh no!" Her own (minor) pain forgotten, Katara crawled towards her accidental victim. "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you." The little animal probably understood her about as much as the otter penguins back home in the South Pole had, but it still felt right to say. "Here, let me OW!" As she reached for the helpless animal, to put it back on its feet again, the hard beak lashed out, stabbing at her outstretched fingers. Katara whipped her stinging hand away. "Hey! I know I kicked you but I'm trying to help!" She knew it was wrong but Katara couldn't help but feel a little thankful that she had something to dump her frustration on. It wasn't like she could go back to Sokka, Aang or Toph and talk about this with them; even Momo wasn't an option – considering that anything she said to him could be overheard.
But that small amount of satisfaction evaporated when Katara noticed something that she had initially missed in the darkness: when she had kicked the turtle duck, she hadn't just sent it onto its back. There were thick cracks running throughout the shell, creating a maze-like pattern of damage. Instantly Katara's guilt rose like the tide. I kicked him(?) that hard and I didn't even notice? Why am I so stupid? The poor creature had to be in unimaginable pain!
The sound of rolling waves snapped Katara out of her trance, reminding her that there was something she could do. "Hang on, I can fix that," she promised. Raising a hand, Katara signalled in a gesture so familiar she could have done it in her sleep. Immediately her pouch's cork popped out and a long arm of water rose from the leather, coating her hand like a wet-but-pleasant glove. Katara wasn't sure how she was going to heal the entire shell without picking up the wounded animal by its cracked shell, which anyone would know would just cause it more pain.
I'll find a way she promised herself. I did this, I'll fix it.
Turning back to her victim, she expected to see it still lying on its back in the sand as it had been. Instead, the squirming turtle duck was being held in the air by a pair of hands – hands with skin much paler than Katara's; hands with long, fine, sharp fingernails almost like claws; hands attached to a very familiar body of a very familiar firebending Princess.
Katara's smile leapt back to her face.
"Hello, Princess Katara."