Well, a lot more talky in this chapter, and the revealing of a not-so-secret secret. Yay! Also, fixed the Zhou/Zhao thing...:massive sweatdrop: Just so you know, this chapter and the next chapter are going to be a little short. I suppose I could have combined them, but I felt the break was necessary.
Chapter 3: "A Confrontation"
"The Fire Nation!" Katara panicked. "What are they planning to do?"
Zuko didn't answer.
Katara stood up, but had to brace herself against a wall until her head stopped hurting. The iron walls were very cold, like ice. When her head ceased throbbing, she turned to Zuko and said, "We need to find a way out of here."
Zuko snorted contemptuously and replied, "There IS no escape. We're trapped here until Zhao lets us out, or we're rescued by my uncle."
"What about Aang and Sokka? They'll try to rescue us too..."
"Zhao's counting on that. Assuming, of course, they haven't been killed or captured already."
Katara bit her lip. Sokka...Aang...were they alright? She closed her eyes. Yes. They had to be. She opened her eyes again. There was no way she was going to let Zhao use her as bait to lure them to him...she wasn't going to just sit around while Sokka and Aang fell into a trap. Katara scanned her cell. Bars to her front and left, iron wall to the rest. Outside her cell and Zuko's was the rest of the brig, filled with a few other cells and some crude furniture. The thick iron door on the opposite side of the room served as the single exit. A guard's face watched them through the door's porthole.
Zuko watched with a cross between disdain and amusement as the waterbender scrutinized the cell, looking for any weaknesses. Checking the sturdiness of the cell's door hinges, the durability of the lock, the strength of the bars. She even tried to see if she could squeeze between the bars, but to no avail. Eventually she gave up on her useless attempts and paced in her cell.
Suddenly she stopped and turned to Zuko. "Hey, this prison is made of iron. Couldn't you use firebending to heat up and bend the bars?"
Zuko rolled his eyes. "Don't you think a ship owned by firebenders would have anticipated that? Why do you think this room is so cold?"
Katara looked around. The room was cold. But, being raised in the South Pole, she was used to icy temperatures, and hadn't even given it a second thought. She looked back at Prince Zuko, and for the first time noticed he was shivering. A slight glow from his body indicated he was using his fire to keep warm. Katara didn't know if she should feel satisfaction or pity.
Seeing that Katara didn't understand the rhetorical question, Zuko continued, "Fire is harder to control and maintain in freezing temperatures. And this metal is ice cold. It would take forever before these bars were heated up enough to make the metal pliable, and by then a guard would have stopped me. Why do you suppose the Fire Nation concentrated on conquering your nation so early in the war?"
Katara didn't want to hear the answer.
Feeling she didn't comprehend the concept yet, Zuko pressed on with his example. "The cold of your homeland made it a threat to become a possible stronghold against the Fire Nation later. That's why the Fire Nation attacked the Water Tribe near the beginning of the war, to eliminate a threat before it could realize itself."
Katara turned away from Prince Zuko. She didn't want to hear that. She really didn't want to hear that...logic behind the brutality and oppression of her people, spoken with such casualness. A threat? They were just living in peace! The Fire Nation was the only threat here! Katara turned her head to give Zuko an ugly look. She felt her anger wane as she saw him still slightly shivering. No! He didn't deserve pity. He could just freeze to death for all she...
Hold on... Why was it so cold down here? The engine ran on burning coal...it should be very warm below deck... Katara put her finger in her mouth, wetting it. Then she tested the air with her moistened finger and found a draft coming from an upwards diagonal direction. Katara walked quickly over to the bars of her cell and looked out. Outside her cell, in the brig's ceiling, was a vent! That must have been how they kept the room cold–they were pumping cool air in!
"Look!" Katara called to Zuko, pointing it out. He looked unimpressed. "A vent!" she clarified, hoping he would catch on.
"Really? I couldn't guess. A nice idea, except for the fact we have no idea where the vent leads to and we're still stuck in here!"
Katara frowned. Sheesh, she didn't see him coming up with any ideas. She looked back at the vent. Well, one thing at a time. First she needed to figure a way out of this cell, then she could decide what to do about the vent...
Katara's thoughts were interrupted when she heard a loud clank come from the brig's door lock turning. She quickly stepped away from the bars and into the back corner of her cell. As the door opened with a groan, a figure stepped in. Judging from his garments, he was obviously high in rank. Commander Zhao. She recognized his armor from glimpses she had caught of him in previous encounters. Katara stayed back in the shadows and watched as he approached the prisons. Zuko, on the other hand, bolted right up to the bars of his cell.
"Zhao, you audacious bastard! What impudence you have to arrest me! I was not within Fire Nation boundaries! You have no right–"
"On the contrary, Prince Zuko," Zhao crooned, "You were arrested for disturbing the peace. Of course, once we cross the border into Fire Nation, I'll have you arrested for entering banished grounds..."
"You can't do that!"
"Oh, but I can. And I will..." Zhao sneered, positively gleeful.
"My father, when he finds out what you have done, will punish you for your insolent transgressions–"
"Like last time, Prince Zuko?" Zhao mocked, his eyes dancing on Zuko's scar. "That's a terribly annoying habit you have, my prince, always running to your daddy like that. You would think experience would have taught you that your father doesn't give a damn about his silly little son's troubles..."
Zuko flew into a fury. "How dare you! You know nothing of my father, you worm! He cares for me and is proud to have me as a son!"
"Right. Which is why you received banishment and I a promotion!" Zhou laughed long and hard. Katara got the eerie feeling she had heard that awful laugh before. She watched the rage on Zuko's face, underlined with a deep hurt. What sort of father would banish his own son? What did Zuko do?
"My father...will not...allow this..."
"I don't care what you father does with you. It won't matter very soon. The Avatar will come for his little friend and will fall into my grasp. And, once I hand over the Avatar and collect my reward, you'll have no way to restore your honor. So, I suppose you should be thanking me for dragging you to the Fire Nation to be arrested. It's probably the only way you'll ever get to see your home again!" Zhao laughed out loud again. Zuko could no longer hold his fury in check and launched a vengeful fireball at his hated enemy. Zhao blocked it with little effort. "And you..." he said, turning to Katara.
He walked over to her cell, right up to her bars and looked in. In the light, she could make out his face...sharply defined features...piercing eyes...sneering lips...she...she knew him...
"So, you must be one of the Avatar's companions," Zhao taunted, peering in at her frightened face, " I do hope you'll enjoy your stay while..." he choked to a stop when he caught her eyes.
Blue.
Zuko's seething came to an abrupt halt when he saw Zhao blanch. The man looked as if he had seen a ghost. His Adam's apple bobbed several times before he stuttered, "You!" Zuko's eyes trailed over to Katara, whose face was hidden from him, and saw a tremor pass through her. Otherwise, she remained deathly still. Zhao straightened, and with an odd stiffness to his voice, said, "Well. This is unexpected. I...shall leave now until you are...further needed." And with that, he turned on his heel and marched out, the iron door slamming shut behind him.
What the hell?
Zuko's curiosity got the best of him, and he asked in a low voice, "What just happened? Do you know each other?"
Katar stayed exactly in place, the only sign on movement in her shaking fists. "It's him..."
Too curious to be annoyed by her vagueness, he pressed, "Him who?"
"...the...the man who killed my mother!"
Zhao slammed the door to his office shut, desperate to get away from human contact. He sat down at his desk and ran his hands over his face several times. Those eyes! Those remarkable blue eyes! Zhou squirmed in his chair. He had never expected her to be one of the Avatar's companions...to think that he would see her again. He remembered that girl from a raid on the Water Tribe he had preformed two years ago...two years, and the image of her eyes hadn't faded in the least.
Those awful eyes. Zhao had performed countless raids and committed many atrocities on his climbing and scratching to the top. And in every single cruel deed, he had felt completely justified in his actions and without remorse. Except for one. Those eyes of hers–so blue and so very, very sad–stood in mournful accusation, a shining testament to his irrefutable guilt. He could not look into their depths without acknowledging what he had done before them was wrong.
He hated them. He hated her for having them. As soon as the Avatar was captured he would kill that girl with the beautiful blue eyes...
He couldn't stand to look at her.
Zuko was surprised. Zhao had killed the girl's mother? Well, he thought dryly, destroying other people's lives was what Zhao did best. While it didn't come at any shock that the waterbender would recognize her mother's murderer, it did strike Zuko as very odd that Zhao recognized her. Not only that, but he had turned a ghastly white. The commander must have committed hundreds of similaratrocities without so much as batting an eye–what was it about this girl that disturbed Zhao so much?
Puzzled, Zuko glanced over at her. She was sitting in a little ball, her hands placed over her throat. Over her mother's necklace, the one that he had tried to use as bait for her and the Avatar in the past. So strange that they would share a common enemy...
"I hate the Fire Nation," she muttered after a long silence.
Zuko felt insulted. How dare she condemn him and his nation based on slime like Zhao? "Hmph! Don't damn our nation just because one man killed your mother..."
"It's not just him!" she snapped, eyes blazing, "It's you! It's all of you! Your nation oppresses and kills people, for no other reason than sadism and a thirst for power, and you spend all your time trying to capture Aang, the one person who can bring peace back into this awful world! Besides Shiyu, I haven't met a single decent firebender! You're all nothing but monsters!" she bitterly spat.
Zuko sat upright as his temper blazed. "Who the hell do you think you are, calling me and my nation monsters? Traipsing around with the Avatar, and you seem to think you know it all! What does some peasant trash know about my nation's reasons? My reasons? You don't know a damn thing about this war, you stupid little girl!"
"I KNOW!" Katara screamed, slamming her hand on the floor. "I know! I know every time I put on this necklace and remember my dead mother! I know every time I think about my father, who's off fighting for the freedom of our people! I know, when I have to constantly fight for my life, and only people I have left are always getting hurt! You think I don't know about your nation? After all it's done? You think I don't know about this WAR? I know! I'm living it everyday!"
Zuko sat, stunned. He would have liked to have told her that she was wrong, to yell and shout that she only knew her side of the war. But as he heard her muffled sobs, Zuko realized he didn't know anything more than his side of the war, either. And so he stayed silent.
Yup, short n' sweet. Zhao kinda stole the show, freaking out like that. I don't really know if firebenders are susceptible to cold–I just thought it would be interesting if they were. And, needless to say, the vent will come in handy soon. Keep reading, the next chapter will be a blast!