AN: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or anything else you recognize.
Gran Gran. Keep your back straight and your chin up. Walk like you know your worth and no one will dare to cross you.
Her father. You are the strength of our tribe, our family, and my heart. Be strong for yourself now.
Sokka. Remember, they need this more than we do. You're the one with the power here. Well, you always have the power with your magic water but you know what I mean. Stay safe.
Her mother. I love you, Katara.
The people she loved were with her, always. From their words of affection and support, she constructed an indestructible armor for herself. Her waterskin, ready to be uncorked at the first sign of any funny business, was a comforting presence resting snugly against her hip. She remembered her own words to her waterbending teacher from years ago (you can't knock me down!) and held them on her tongue, as she stepped down from the palanquin.
In one second, she took in all her surroundings. The tiny fountain with trickling water (just enough to make one whip) surrounded by shrubbery, the impassive guards, the curious onlookers, the clean pathway that would lead her to the front door of her final destination. The Royal Palace of the Fire Nation. With its harsh red, gold, and black paint and towering height, it looked as though it was designed with the sole purpose of intimidating visitors. From what everyone knew of the Fire Nation, that assumption probably wasn't too far from the truth. Katara's appraisal was interrupted by a guard clearing his throat right next to her ear. She turned her head just a few degrees in his direction to see him gesture at the black walkway in front of her. Rolling her eyes, she strode forward, radiating confidence, even though her bones felt like they were made of the heaviest stone. She would not give these obnoxious men the pleasure of seeing her cowed by their attitudes. Starting from this moment, she would set the precedent that she was not going to be a fur rug that they could walk over.
She slowed for a brief moment, realizing she had forgotten all her belongings in the palanquin, but a well-timed rustle from behind told her the guards had taken care of it. She lifted her chin a little higher and picked up the pace. The fierce waterbender would face this new problem head-on, just as she always had. For that's what all this was after all - another problem, another nuisance. She was sure there were simpering girls in the Fire Nation who would call it a miracle, but Katara was happy to not count herself amongst them. Everyone knew the Fire Lord was a menace, raised in a family of psychopaths and murderers and molded into the perfect tyrant. Granted, she hadn't gotten much of a chance to actually study his domestic policies, but she was sure they wouldn't negate the words she had heard from pretty much everyone. To be engaged to the Fire Lord was a divine punishment of the worst kind and somehow, Katara had earned it. Any attempt, and there had been many, to evade her impending engagement was thwarted. She held a lot of disdain and contempt for this arrangement; whenever she had dreamed of the world knowing her name, she had not thought it would be as the wife of a monster. She would be lying if she said she wasn't a little scared, but she knew she was safe for the most part because as Sokka had said many times, the Fire Nation did need this more than the Southern Water Tribe.
After the conclusion of the Fifty Years' War, in which Avatar Aang had given up his life to defeat Fire Lord Azulon, Fire Lord Ozai had taken the throne through some political maneuver. She didn't really have the details, and to be honest, that was okay with her. She could do without what was probably just extra gore. Long story short, the current monarch was Fire Lord Zuko, who had (allegedly; no one would tell her for certain) killed his father and sister out of a lust for power. For some reason, the Fire Lord was interested in putting up a facade of goodwill toward the other nations and he had come to the conclusion that the best way to cement this image was to marry someone from outside the Fire Nation. As the only daughter of a political leader who was both of age and single, Katara was the obvious choice. And so she was here, in the heart of the nation that had killed her mother and her kin at the Northern Water Tribe in fits of fanaticism, standing outside the golden doors of the Royal Palace.
As the guards slowly pushed the doors open, she got her first view of what would be her new house. Her first thought was that 'house' was a very limiting word for this monstrosity of a building. The main entrance opened into an enormous foyer, lined with gaudy paintings and flaming torches. Taking her first steps across the threshold, she observed that three corridors were branching off from the foyer. The one directly ahead of her was closed off by doors just like the ones she had just walked through and likely led to the main room where the Fire Lord made all his antagonistic laws and policies. To her right, the corridor was bustling with servants who carried bedsheets and mattresses. That must lead to the bedrooms then, and to the left...I can't really tell, but there's a lot of natural light. Maybe the gardens? She didn't have much time to think upon this, as the guards and soldiers began to march on both her left and right sides in a single-line fashion until they were lining the entire hallway leading up to what she had guessed was the central chamber. It felt eerily like she was being caged into this path, and she didn't like it one bit. The same guard who had non verbally told her to get a move on before was now standing at her side, putting his hand on her shoulder to move her forward. She shrugged it off as she took a wide step away from him and walked towards the second set of golden doors that were easing their way open.
The room behind them looked dark until she actually stepped inside. She saw a row of leaping flames in front of an elevated dais, on which the faint figure of a man sat. She squinted at him but Katara couldn't make out a thing - her eyes really weren't used to these warm colors and bright fires. She had never seen a portrait of her soon-to-be fiance before since Gran Gran had always dismissed it as bad luck (which didn't even make sense, honestly), and even now, she had no idea what his face looked like. Suddenly, a booming voice from next to her announced her presence.
"My Lord, Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, daughter to esteemed Chief Hakoda and the late Chieftess Kya, has arrived."
The guard went into a deep bow with an open palm above a fist after his exclamation. Katara could have scoffed if she wasn't feeling so out of her element - she hoped no one was expecting her to bow because she didn't lower her head for anyone. Certainly not crazy murderers. The next second, a warm and rough hand was in the crook of her elbow, leading her out of the room she now noticed was furnished with nothing but maroon, and towards the corridor she had assumed hosted the bedrooms. Yet again, she shook the guard's hand off of her and sneered at how...quick and painless that had been. She had really expected a whole production to be made out of a 'Water Tribe peasant being in the presence of the magnificent Fire Lord', but the loser hadn't even said a word. Well, that suited her just fine. The less interaction, the better. As she followed the guard, she took note of all her surroundings again. Just in case. She had developed that habit a long while ago, when she had just started to travel the world with her brother, and it had always served her well in dangerous situations. She registered every source of water, every window she could crawl out of, every door she could pry open if need be. After about a minute of walking (why was this hallway so long?), they abruptly stopped at a metallic door on the left side of the hallway, across from a small window through which only the trunk of a tree was visible, allowing for practically no natural light to fill this already dark and gloomy corridor. The guard leaned forward to push the door open and gestured at Katara to enter. She didn't. Out of nowhere, she felt overwhelming nausea. It felt like stepping across that threshold would mark her as someone who had given up, or property of the Fire Nation. It was irrational, she knew it was, but she did not want to step into that room. Stalling, she turned to the guard.
"How old is the Fire Lord?"
"22, Lady Katara."
Involuntarily, her eyebrows raised. Huh. For some reason, she had assumed that someone working for a political marriage must be 30 or older, and no one had ever bothered to dispel that idea. 22...that was only two years older than her! How had he racked up such a monstrous legacy in such a short time?
"Do you like working for him?"
"I am honored to be in the service of the gracious and honorable Fire Lord."
She pressed her lips together in distaste as her eyebrows dropped. There it was, the supremacist propaganda that these people were force-fed and regurgitated without thought. She held some sympathy, but mostly contempt, for the fact that this man had probably never had an original thought in his life, had never once questioned the barbaric ways of his home nation, he just was content to be some puppet of the 'gracious and honorable Fire Lord'. She also realized that the guard would probably not answer any more questions, and she really did have to enter the room now. Apprehensive, she stepped forward into what would likely just be a well-furnished prison cell.
Stepping into the room that was predictably covered in maroon and black, Katara was taken aback by just how large it was. It would take around forty of her longest strides to reach the other end of the room and the vaulted ceiling would not have been reached even by three Sokkas standing on each other's shoulders. There was only one window in the room, opposite the wall with the entrance, and it was currently covered by a velvet red cloth. To her right was a huge canopy bed, one that could comfortably fit her whole family, flanked by a black dresser on each side. To her left, there were two sets of double doors. Yanking open the ones closest to her, she saw enough clothes to outfit the entire Southern Water Tribe, and of course, they were all some shade of red, black, or gold. Goodness gracious, did these people not know other colors existed? If the guard who was still hovering at the threshold told her that they dyed their water sources red, she would believe it without hesitation. She moved on to the next set of doors which opened to reveal a tiled bathroom. She practically sprinted to the faucet to splash some water on her face and was very much relieved to see that it was the same refreshing blue she had always known. As she bent the water droplets away from her skin, she felt much more relaxed (although still wary, she would never let her guard down in this foreign land) and her nausea disappeared instantly. Looking in the mirror, she noticed a bathtub as large as one of the skiffs her family would use behind her, and her eyes widened. She turned a little to see a toilet and a standing shower in the farthest corners of the bathroom. A shower and a bathtub? Did all prisoners live this lavishly? Well, she wasn't really going to complain - the more water sources the better. She reluctantly left the bathroom to see the guard still standing at the door.
"Lady Katara, if you need anything or you find something that is not to your liking, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are happy to help in any capacity that we can. Dinner will be sent to your room in a few hours."
Nothing is to my liking, she wanted to say, but instead what came out was, "Dinner will be sent to my room? I don't have to, you know, eat with the Fire Lord or anything?"
"Not at all, Lady Katara. It was decided that you would feel more comfortable eating without new faces around you."
She cocked her head to the side. Decided? Decided by whom? People she had never met? The royal menace just probably thought she ate like a savage since that's what these people thought those dressed in blues and indigos were and didn't want to have her ruin his meal. Well, see if she cared! These people had gotten one thing right, she would rather not eat around their pompous faces.
"Okay then. Thank you for your help."
If the least she did in this Fire Nation was dispel people's assumptions about the Water Tribes, that would be good enough for her. She would show them manners, propriety, and grace. The guard bowed his head and closed the door as he left. Katara slowly walked over to the bed and sat down, starting to pick at the golden dragons embroidered on the dark red comforter. With a deep sigh, she began to contemplate everything she had seen today and what her plan from here on out would be. She may not be the great tactician her brother was (oh, she missed him so much it hurt) but she could channel him pretty well, and she thought she was intelligent enough in her own right. The first thing she knew for sure was that she would have to stop thinking of herself as a prisoner. That would only serve to subconsciously undermine her own power here, especially because no one else was really treating her as a prisoner. Yet.
The waterbender was conflicted, however, about how she should act. Did she want to go along with this arrangement, sign away her life to a loveless marriage in a land home to people that had killed some of the people she loved most, and resign herself to rebelling in the tiniest of ways? She knew she didn't want to be seen as a trophy wife for the rest of her life. So maybe that meant she should do what she did best - dig her heels in. She didn't want to be surrounded by these strange men in a strange palace that belonged to a strange monarch; she missed her home, her family. She wanted to bide her time until she could see them again, until she could escape this ridiculous engagement. Maybe if she was uncooperative enough, they would see her as an unfit bride and let her go. Normally, that would be seen as a sign of great dishonor, but she didn't really think anyone would fault her for running away from the Fire Lord. She didn't know which pathway was best, but she was aware that she had to make a decision before it was made for her.
She was awoken from what she had thought would be a few minutes of shuteye by a rapping on the door. Cautiously, she walked towards it, hand outstretched and ready to wield any water vapor around her as a weapon. She nudged the door open with her free hand to see a maid holding a full platter. Oh right, dinner. She glanced back at the still-closed window to see that the little light filtering through was dusky. Opening the door all the way, she took a few steps back as the aroma hit her nose. That was definitely not her favorite stewed sea prunes, but she had to admit, it smelled appetizing. The maid walked to a table near the window and set the tray on it, unfolding the napkins and utensils, and pulling out the lone chair that was already there.
"What's your name?"
The maid's golden eyes widened and she squeaked, "My- Rai, Lady Katara!"
"Thank you, Rai."
Katara made her way to the table and sat down as Rai nodded furiously and nearly sprinted out of the room. She sat down and lifted the cover off the dish closest to her. Using her fork to poke around at the food, she realized it was some kind of meat, although not one she was familiar with. She raised a piece to her mouth but quickly put it down before even tasting it. She couldn't be careless in the Fire Nation! She bent some water out of the pitcher the maid had brought and surrounded the meat with it to seek out any poison. She had never tried this healing technique on food before, only on humans, but the concept was the same - just search for unknown liquids. She hadn't figured out a way to identify dry or powdered poisons with waterbending, but she had learned to identify different scents and herbs during her travels. Once she was satisfied that no one was poisoning her today, she dug into the meal with a vigor that would have made Sokka's jaw drop. She hadn't eaten all day and she really needed some sustenance if she was going to have to defend herself at a moment's notice. When she had finished the meat, she carefully opened the other dish that was on the tray. Spiced chocolate! She recognized that from her time in the Earth Kingdom. After running the poison check again and making sure no one was looking at her from the window, she slurped greedily at the chocolate and used her tongue to make sure not even a drop was left behind. Oh, it was as delicious as she remembered. So the firebenders had one redeeming quality - really good taste buds. She allowed herself to slouch in her chair, feeling too full to get up. After a few minutes, she carried the tray to her door and was about to drop it outside when she noticed guards standing on both sides of the door. Raising an eyebrow, she wondered why two people needed to keep watch outside her room.
"Can I help you two with something?"
The guards shook their heads.
"Then why are you standing there?"
"We are here for your protection, Lady Katara."
She wanted to laugh. Protection! More like to make sure she didn't run away in the middle of the night.
"Well, thanks. Can I leave my dishes out here?"
One of the guards nodded, so she placed the tray on the floor and quickly locked the door as soon as she was back in her room. Katara walked back to the large window and pushed aside the heavy drape. It gave her a view into a beautiful garden with towering trees and a tiny river running in between shrubbery and rock formations. She saw a family of turtleducks splashing around in a small pond and smiled. For the first time since entering this land so different from her own, she felt some semblance of serenity.
Before she knew it, the dusky light had been replaced by moonlight and the waterbender turned her head up to face the source of her powers. Yue, her best friend, was watching over her and that served to ease some tension in her mind. However, she found that this reassurance was not enough to make her feel completely comfortable, as Katara couldn't get a wink of sleep all night. She tossed and turned, removed and added pillows under her head, threw off some layers of the comforter, even went through some soothing waterbending forms, but nothing helped. Every time she laid down and closed her eyes, she would sit up seconds later with wide eyes scanning the room for some imaginary threat. She felt like a four-year-old about to beg her dad to get rid of the monster under her bed; the only difference being that no one was around to protect her now from a threat that truly existed. There was a monster in this palace, he did roam the halls, and he could easily hurt her. She rocked back and forth with her head in her hands, wishing her paranoia would go away, wishing she could sleep, but knowing that her fear was too great and too real.
AN: Thank you for reading! I am so excited about this project; I've been working on it for a while and I finally worked up the nerve to publish it. I promise this will not be like other arranged marriage fics you've probably read for this couple. This story will probably span close to 30 chapters, but we'll see where Katara takes us. Please review with your thoughts so I can improve!