Katara was having the time of her life. She could barely catch her breath after each dance number before yet another charming young man approached her and requested a dance. Men were giving her the sort of looks that they had always given Jade, and never her.
She could tell that Jade and Sokka were having fun, too. Girls were fawning all over Sokka, and he was just eating it up. Her brother was a handsome man, that much she knew from the countless times her girlfriends had begged to sleep over so that they could have a chance to see Sokka without a shirt on. Jade, too, was receiving quite a bit of attention from the opposite sex, and was surrounded by so many bodies that Katara couldn't tell where one man ended and another one began.
The only thing that wasn't going quite right was Aang. Katara had barely seen him all night, and she had not danced with him once. She supposed that it was partly her fault, since she didn't have the heart to turn down the eager young men that begged for the next dance. But still, he could have at least made an effort as well. She could see him now, dancing with Jade for what must have been the fourth time tonight, with an easy smile on his face.
Katara managed to bore a path through the crowd to the refreshment table, where she found Sokka sipping a goblet of red wine and telling whopping tales to the gaggle of girls that encircled him. With a smile, she shook her head and accepted a goblet of wine from a servant, and savored the way the cool liquid drizzled down her parched throat.
Sokka noticed her and managed to tear himself away from the girls. He sauntered up to her with a wide grin. "Having fun?" he said in a voice that was slightly slurred, and Katara was tempted to snatch the goblet away from him.
Katara nodded. "I'm so thirsty. I've been dancing nearly all night!"
"Well, you look beautiful," Sokka complimented her. "I haven't really seen Aang at all. Did you dance with him?"
"No," Katara admitted, not willing to say anything more.
Sokka looked shocked. "Well, there he is now. Go ask him."
Katara saw where Sokka was pointing. Her brow furrowed when she saw that he was still pressed up against Jade. "I don't want to interrupt him and Jade," she said lightly.
"Interrupt him and – wait a minute," said Sokka, looking confused.
"Oh, come on, Sokka. Even you can't be daft enough to not see how much they like each other," said Katara, struggling to keep her tone neutral. "And I don't want to spoil that for Jade. She hasn't had an easy time of it when it comes to boys."
"You've got it all wrong –" Sokka began, but before he could finish, another horde of giggling girls surrounded him and began pulling on his shirtsleeves, begging to see his muscles. Sokka grinned and obliged with mock exasperation, forgetting about his sister and what he had been about to say.
Katara sighed and accepted another goblet of wine, draining that one in a few sips. Goodness, was she thirsty. Her goblet was immediately refilled, and she gulped it down, relishing the cool, bubbling sweetness.
The room was beginning to appear a bit hazy before her eyes. It was deathly hot. Beads of sweat rolled down Katara's forehead as she tried to fan herself with her hand. She downed a fourth goblet of wine and then decided that a bit of fresh air would do her good. She found it difficult to peer around the hall for the door, and had trouble focusing her eyes on it and walking in a straight path. Her arms trembled as she struggled to push the heavy door open, and a servant quickly came forward to assist her. She gave him a wavering smile of thanks and then trudged unsteadily outside, past the great walls, to the edge of the sea.
She kicked off her sandals and dug her toes into the cool, moist sand, letting the gentle, foamy waves roll over her feet and ankles. The calm sea and the gentle breeze seemed to make her regain her senses. She had no right to be jealous of Jade. Aang wasn't hers to claim, and she knew that she should be happy for her friend that she had found that special someone.
She plopped down in the sand, letting the waves wash over her, in her fragile state not caring that her gown was getting soaked. On impulse she stood up, and then, laughing drunkenly, she careened forward into the sea, diving under the waves and feeling her mass of hair swirl around her like seagrass. She opened her eyes under the water, ignoring the sting of the salt water and staring off into the dark blackness.
She came up for air, and found herself facing a dark, hulking object. It was huge, so large that she had to strain her neck upward to see the top, and it took her a moment to realize that it was a ship.
Her fuzzy mind didn't comprehend that she should swim away until it was too late. A net came tumbling down from the ship, entangling her in a knotted mess. She clawed at the strings, tried to scream, tried to break free, but couldn't think through the cloud of panic that fogged her mind. She felt herself being pulled up out of the water, still entwined in the net, and suddenly she was looking into the eyes of a huge, burly man with a short, pointed black beard. She recognized him from somewhere, but her mind refused to work and tell her where.
In a last, desperate attempt, Katara made a fist and thrust it towards her captor. A jet of salt water streamed out of the sea and splattered in the man's eyes. He howled at the stinging and dropped her, digging his fingers into his eyelids and furiously rubbing his eyeballs. Katara stood up and tried to run in what she thought was the direction of the edge of the ship, in order to jump off and swim back to the Earth Kingdom. She tripped and fell, smacking her head against the wooden planking.
In that instant, she knew no more.
Aang turned his head hopefully at the sound of approaching footsteps. His spirits brightened when he saw Sokka returning with a guard, then sank again when he saw the forlorn expression on his friend's face. Aang groaned and cupped his face in his hands.
"We've looked up and down the entire beach," said Sokka. The young water tribe man looked exhausted, with dark rings of purplish-gray shadowing under his eyes. Aang was sure that he and Jade looked the same way. None of them had gotten any sleep since discovering that Katara was gone.
"That's it, then," said Aang with a heavy sigh. "She must have been captured by a Fire Nation ship. The servant said that the last place he saw her was the beach."
A tear trickled down Jade's cheek as she tried to stifle a gasp of horror. "We have to find her," she said with a small sniffle.
"Not to worry," said King Bumi, who was standing beside Aang with an arm around his shoulder. "I'll assemble my troops. We have a few ships of our own, and in a few days we'll be ready to go after those Fire Nation bastards and rescue Miss Katara."
Sokka shook his head, rubbing his eyes at the same time. "We don't have a few days. They're using Katara as bait, trying to get her to tell them where Aang is. She'll never tell them, and then they'll kill her. If we don't get there soon, she'll be lost."
"We have to go after her with Appa," said Aang. "Find the ship. One of us will somehow sneak on and free her."
"I will," said Jade.
"No," said Sokka. "You won't know what to do, Jade. Aang and I both have more experience in this sort of thing."
"I'm going after her!" Jade shouted, and now tears were streaming down her face. "You have no idea what we've been through – what she had to go through to save me – what they did to her…"
"What?" said Aang. "Who? Who did what to her?"
Jade's face had a haunted expression. "Back when I still lived in the South Pole - after the men left – the day the Fire Nation came…" her voice trailed off, as if she couldn't bear the horror of what she was saying.
"Jade, don't," said Sokka, looking as if it were extremely painful for him to remember this as well. "Aang doesn't need to hear this."
"Yes, I do!" insisted Aang. "Jade, tell me."
But Jade seemed to have snapped out of her trance. "Katara risked her life for me, and very nearly lost it. There's no way I'm leaving her to these Fire Nation dolts, and the least I can do is be brave enough to rescue her myself."
Sokka nodded, understanding her need to do this. "Let's go," he said. "How soon can Appa be ready, Aang?"
"I see it!" cried Jade.
Aang shifted Appa's reins to his left hand and turned to where Jade was pointing. Sokka had already leaped across the bison's shaggy body and was scanning the ocean eagerly.
Jade patted Momo, who was resting on her shoulder. She stared down below at the hulking dark mass that bobbed in the gentle waves. From way up here the ship looked so tiny, but she knew from having seen them during the invasion that several water tribe houses could fit on one deck. Her heart ached when she thought of Katara alone with those brutish Fire Nation pigs. Who knew what they were doing to her, if she was hurt, or maybe even dead already.
Sokka's brow furrowed. "We have to get close enough so that Jade can jump off and get on the ship, but at the same time we can't be seen. At least it's dark out." He yawned and stretched his arms in exhaustion. They had been searching since morning without rest or sleep, and in all of them it was becoming apparent. Jade refused to let her exhaustion get the better of her, allowing adrenaline and the fear of what she was about to do envelope her and be her fuel.
Aang shook Appa's reins and then tugged them to his right knee. The giant bison began spiraling downwards in the direction of the ship.
"Hold your breath!" Aang called back to them. Jade's chest expanded with a large gulp of air as she gripped Appa's shaggy fur. The bison plummeted straight down into the icy water.
When they surfaced nearly the ship, Jade spluttered with cold and gasped for air, the bison's drenched fur sticking up in tufts where she had been holding it in her clenched fists. Appa was directly next to the ship, and he began to gently float upwards, stopping when his head was exactly level with the railings on the side of the ship. An inch higher and the guards standing on the northern deck would have been able to see him above the edge of the ship.
"There's only two of them on deck," a dripping Sokka whispered to Aang and Jade. "Jade and I will sneak on board and take them out. Jade, then you quickly go inside. Tell anyone you see that you are one of the captain's whores, and that he has just finished with you and has sent you to bring the new prisoner to him so that he can rape her. He will most likely lead you to Katara, and then you can free her and try to get away. We'll be waiting here."
"Do we even know whose ship this is?" Aang hissed.
"No," admitted Sokka, "but it's probably either Admiral Zhao's or Prince Zuko's. Either way, it's the closest one we've seen to the Earth Kingdom, and therefore probably the one that took Katara."
Jade trembled at the thought of what she was about to do. This was by far the most dangerous task she had ever set out to complete, and the closest she had ever been to a Fire Nation ship. These were the ones that had killed her mother, and most likely her father. She bristled at the memory, anger strengthening her resolve and forcing down her fear.
Sokka squeezed her hand, "Ready?" he said softly.
Jade took a deep breath and nodded. She counted to three under her breath, and then without hesitation sprang up and leaped onto the ship. The two guards spun around and raised their pikes, but before they could shout a warning or send forth a wisp of flame Sokka had sent his boomerang into the throat of one. Jade ran forward as fast as her legs could carry her, her eyes seeing nothing but the guard in front of her. He sent a blast of fire at her, which she barely managed to avoid by doing a somersault forward. She wished desperately that she had Katara's waterbending skills, and could summon the waves of the sea below. But she had to make do with what she had, which at that moment was a knife. She buried it deep into the gut of the guard, feeling his warm blood against her hands, and then used the impact of his falling body to heave him over the side of the ship.
Sokka had disposed of the other guard, and he gave her a high-five. "Nicely done," he said with a grin. "I'm impressed."
Aang gave a sharp whistle, and Sokka stepped back over the railing and onto Appa's head. "Be careful," he said to Jade. "Get Katara and come back here as quick as you can. Oh, and here." He handed her a handkerchief, which she used to wipe the blood off her hands.
Jade climbed onto Appa and embraced them both. Tears of apprehension and anxiety began to well up in her eyes, but she fought them back before the boys could see. "Don't worry about me," she said. "And if I'm not back before morning, promise you'll leave and go get help from Bumi."
"We will," Sokka promised. Aang looked as if he were about to protest. A sharp, dangerous look from Jade made him smile weakly. "Get her back for me," he whispered in her ear.
Jade gave him a look of understanding and then hugged him again.
"Oh, and tell my sister," said Sokka carelessly, "that this is what she gets for getting drunk. And that next time we attend a banquet I'm going to request that they don't serve alcohol."
Jade grinned at him. "I'll be sure to deliver the message, Sokka."
She took a deep breath, and then stepped back over the railing and entered the cabin of the ship.
Water.
That was the first thing that popped into Katara's mind as she painfully opened her sore, swollen eyes. Her tongue felt like a dry, rough sponge as she ran it over her cracked lips. She was lying down on a hard, uncomfortable surface, and her vision was hazy. Her eyes focused more clearly, and she struggled to remember what had happened.
She had the worst headache that she had ever experienced, and she felt as if she would vomit were there any morsels of food in her stomach. She briefly remembered drinking the five goblets of wine at the banquet, and knew that this was a hangover. Sokka had described it to her, but she had never imagined that it would be this bad. She silently vowed never to drink alcohol again.
Now to decide where she was. She recalled going past the walls and diving into the sea. That was why her eyes must be so sore – she had gotten them soaked in salt water. But how had she wound up – here?
Where was here?
"Where am I?" she croaked, and winced at the sound of her own voice, which sounded similar to fingernails scraping along glass.
She felt a cool, damp cloth sponge her forehead, which temporarily eased the pain. A face leaned over hers, looking at her with concern. There was something very familiar about that face.
"Admiral Zhao's ship," said the voice that belonged to the face. "You were captured last night, and you've been out cold ever since."
Katara would have screamed in horror and anguish if her voice had worked. Tenatively she reached her hand up to her head and felt the large, tender lump that was crusted with dry blood. She remembered tripping and falling and hitting her head while – running from someone? But who? Admiral Zhao?
Admiral Zhao. She couldn't be here. He had captured her as bait to use for Aang. Aang would come for her, and Zhao would capture him and take him to the Fire Lord. She couldn't allow that to happen.
Katara sat up, and then wished she hadn't as she pitched forward and began to dry heave. Her stomach was empty of anything to throw up, except for a bit of bile that splashed on the rough wooden planks of the ship's floor, and after a few moments her gasping and choking stopped.
"Relax," said the voice, and the cool cloth came up to her forehead again. "You need rest."
"I need to get out of here!" Katara cried in a raspy voice. "I can't be here! He's going to kill Aang!" She tried to get up and run, but her legs trembled and wouldn't work. And that was when she noticed the shackle around her ankle and the chain that extended to the wall.
"I'm a prisoner," she whispered in horror to herself, slumping back against the wall.
"We all are," said the voice.
Katara looked around her, and for the first time noticed the five other girls besides herself chained to the wall. They were in a dungeon of some sort, and the girls were all around her age, with shackles around their ankles. And they were all naked save for two triangles of cloth tied around their breasts and a breachcloth of gold material cinched around their waists.
Katara looked down at her own body, and recoiled in horror when she saw that she was wearing the same thing. She moaned and shut her eyes, praying that this was all a bad dream.
"Try to calm down, Katara."
That voice. It was so familiar. Katara's head snapped around.
"Suki?" she cried. "Suki!" She flung her arms around her old friend from Kyoshi Island. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks onto Suki's shoulder. "You're his prisoner as well? What about the other warriors?"
"Our island was invaded again shortly after you left," said Suki. "Admiral Zhao captured all the young girls, and slayed the men and old women. Most of the warriors were taken prisoner, and I have not seen them since."
Katara stared at her old friend. She remembered Suki as being a strong, fiercely proud, beautiful young lady who made up for her lack of height with spunk and courage. She had been deadly in the battle Katara had witnessed between Kyoshi and the Fire Nation troops sent to capture Aang. Though she was an inch or two shorter, and as slim and slender as a willow tree, Katara would not have wanted Suki as an enemy, and was glad instead, especially now, to have her for a friend.
To see what she had been reduced to brought Katara to tears again. Suki's long, lush blond mane had been cut short, and it was only after seeing this that Katara noticed the absence of her own curly mass. She reached up her hand and gasped. Her once waist-length curls had been chopped off, so that they didn't quite reach her shoulders now. She almost started to cry again, but was too exhausted.
"Don't cry," Suki warned her. "It's bad to draw attention. He'll come for you eventually, but for now it's best if you delay it as long as possible."
"Who?" rasped Katara. "Who's coming for me?"
"Admiral Zhao," spoke up one of the other girls, a pretty brunette chained up in the corner. "He comes for all of us at least once a day."
"It could be worse," said another one. "We could be the whores in the next room, that all of the crew have access to. At least with us it's only the Admiral that gets to have his pleasures."
Katara had to fight to keep from screaming. Admiral Zhao was coming to rape her. "We have to get out of here!" she cried.
"We can't. There's no way," said Suki in a defeated manner. "Believe me, I've tried."
She turned around, and Katara saw the ugly, raw pink burn marks across her back. She shuddered and slumped back to the floor. Her head came to rest against Suki's hard, flat bare stomach as more tears leaked out.
"He wants to know where Aang is," she whispered, her voice high with panic. "I can't tell him. I never will. But the things he'll do to me…"
Suki stroked her hair. "It will be hard," she said. "You've probably never experienced pain, never had a man touch you against your will…"
Katara sat up like a bullet fired from a cannon. "That's not true!" she cried. "You don't know the half of it! You don't know what those pigs did to me… the day the troops came…"
The door to the dungeon suddenly swung open, and four guards stepped in. Katara stopped talking abruptly and looked up at them, the blood draining from her face.
The guards savored the scantily-clad girls hungrily, and then one of them pointed at Katara. "You! Admiral Zhao wishes to see you."
Katara clutched Suki's arm. "No!" she whispered. "Please, Suki! Don't let them take me!"
Tears streamed down Suki's cheeks. "I'm sorry, Katara. You have no idea how much I wish you didn't have to go through this."
The guard that had spoken leaned down and unlocked Katara's shackle with a key. To have that dead weight off her ankle felt incredible, as if her leg were made of air. Katara's glee was short-lived, however, as the soldiers grabbed her and roughly dragged her out of the room, not missing a chance to brush her breasts or bare stomach with their hands. She didn't struggle, didn't fight back, knew that it would be useless and that her only chance was to remain strong. For Aang.
The soldiers dragged her through multiple corriders and halls, up dozens of staircases, scraping her bruised and battered body along the wooden floor. "I can walk!" she spat at them.
The soldiers laughed. "Not you," one of them chortled. "The Admiral gave strict orders that we were to keep a firm hold on you. And firm it shall be." He reached forward to squeeze her breast. She opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the rough, grimy flesh of his hand, biting as hard as she could. Only when she tasted his warm, salty blood did she release his hand.
The guard gave a cry of pain, and then a bellow of rage. He cuffed Katara across the face, so hard that she fell and skidded across the floor. Hot blood gushed out of her lip, and the rough wodden floor splintered and scarped her bare flesh. She watched as her blood spilled and pooled on the ground under her leg, sickened at the sight of the dark red liquid.
"What is the meaning of this?" said a deep, masculine voice that Katara knew all too well.
Admiral Zhao.
Katara looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his black with hatred and rage so intense that he took a step back. He recovered and gave her a self-assured grin. "So it's the waterbender that's causing so much trouble. The Avatar's companion. You're a mighty pretty thing. I'd have never thought the Avatar could afford such expensive whores."
Katara leaped to her feet, ignoring the white-hot pain in her leg, and lashed out. With a pump of her fist she sent a torpedo of blood spiraling for the Admiral's eyes.
Zhao evaporated the blood with a lick of fire. "I didn't expect you to be so powerful. You are about the equal of a master."
When Katara didn't respond, he turned to the men. "Bring her into my quarters."
Katara didn't fight when the men lifted her for a second time and brought the short distance to Zhao's quarters, through the grand set of double doors engraved with a long, slithering dragon. Its eyes were encrusted with sparkling black opals, and Katara thought the dragon closely resembled the Admiral.
Zhao's quarters were astounding. His sitting room was larger than Katara's entire house back in the South Pole, and his bedchamber reminded her of King Bumi's palace back in the Earth Kingdom. The harsh wooden planks were buried in soft sealskin carpets, and weapons of every kind, battle axes, swords with hilts of gold, arrows with the priceless feathers of the snow peacock, hung on the walls. The Admiral sat down in a large, overstuffed chair near the fireplace in the sitting room, and with a flick of his wrist had the logs roaring with flame. Katara felt the warm glow of the fire, a welcome relief from the damp, cold dungeon.
Her relief did not last long. Zhao gave the guards a stern look, and they set Katara down on the floor before his chair. Blood from Katara's lip dribbled down her chin and neck to her chest, and the hideous scrape on her leg oozed out blood mixed with pus and scraps of flesh.
"This can be as easy as you make it," said the Admiral, stroking his closely cropped black beard. "You can either tell me where the Avatar is and be set free, or you can die a slow and painful death. I've heard that waterbenders are smart, and from what I saw of them at the siege of the North Pole, they don't appear to be fools. Hopefully you will live up to their standards and not disappoint them."
Katara remained silent and stood stock-still, ignoring the way the blood from her lip soaked into the thin scraps of fabric that covered her breasts, turning a blind eye to the pain in her leg.
"Where is the Avatar?" questioned the Admiral in a confidant voice.
Silence.
"Remain silent at your own peril," said Admiral Zhao after a moment or two.
When Katara still didn't answer, a jet of flame shot out of Zhao's fingertips, licking at the wound on her leg. Katara squeezed her eyes in pain, but still said nothing.
"Where is the Avatar?" Zhao repeated.
Katara looked at him, and laughed. "Do you really think a bit of fire would scare me into telling you? That was barely enough flame to light a candle."
The wrath in Zhao's eyes frightened her enough to make her take a step back. He leaped up out of his chair, and in one stride had crossed the gap between them and seized her arms, his fingernails digging into her skin. With his teeth he took hold of the strings of her top and ripped them in two. The bloody triangles fell to the ground, leaving her chest bare and exposed.
"I've been raped before," Katara sneered at him. "By your own men. It will be interesting to see if the mighty Admiral Zhao can best them, or if he has to have real men to do the job for him."
The look of violent rage on Zhao's face ceased, and was replaced by a placid smile. Yet despite the smile, there was no mistaking the lust, mixed in with wrath and evil, in his black eyes. He dragged her kicking and screaming to his bedroom and thrust her roughly onto the bed.
"Yes, indeed, it will be interesting," said the Admiral, just before forcing himself on top of the flailing girl.
Jade smoothed her dress nervously as she hurried down the corridor, checking every corner. She knew that her purpose was to get caught and then present her excuse, yet she was still deathly frightened of coming face to face with the firebenders, the ones who were responsible for the death of her mother. Especially the one who had captured Katara.
She held her head high, and tried not to let her fear show in her eyes as she saw two guards coming towards her, both dressed in the black and red leather uniforms that were typical of Fire Nation soldiers. She tried to ignore the way they looked at her, like a hungry cat would a mouse, and had to fight up the urge to pull her dress up. She knew that if she was going to act the role of a whore, she had to look the part, but the sensation of her breasts perched halfway out of her dress was still difficult to bear. Especially with these dirty dogs staring at them like that.
Fire Nation captains treated paid-for whores with respect, she remembered hearing from some random person back in her village. It was only the prisoners that were looked upon as no more than fleas that fell off the captains back. Jade knew that she looked the part of a bought and paid for whore, and that the soldiers she saw before her wouldn't dare to touch her. She shuddered to think of what was being done to Katara, the captain's prisoner.
"You there!" she said to the guards, managing to keep her voice from trembling. "The captain has just finished with me, and before I'll be paid I'm to fetch the new prisoner and bring her to him so that he may take his pleasures from her." She gave them a look that plainly said they were no more than scum between her toes, and she wouldn't tolerate any nonsense from them.
"I didn't know that the General would be taking a whore with him when we left the last town. No doubt you'll be on our ship for some time, aye?" said one of the guards. Both of them gave her a sly grin.
Jade's stern expression never wavered. "Until the ship comes to the next town, I'll be here for the captain's pleasure. But business is business. If you boys can scrape up enough gold, I'd be happy to let each of you take me. However, I'll have you know that I was the most talented in my village, and my price is far more than a meager soldier can ever hope to save up." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she was shocked that she had made up such a story, and blushed. The hungry look from the soldiers, however, quickly cooled her cheeks.
"Let us worry about finding the gold," said the other guard, the one to the left, in that same crafty voice. "You worry about getting the prisoner up to the captain, or he'll give us a sound lashing."
"I haven't yet familiarized myself with the ship," said Jade. "You'll have to take me down to the prison barracks, and show me which one is the latest prisoner. The captain didn't bother to describe her."
"Do you happen to know which captain it was?" said the guard to her left. "I don't quite recall taking any new prisoners aboard recently."
"I didn't bother to learn his name," Jade scoffed. "Whoever is in charge of this shabby piece of wood."
"We take our orders from Prince Zuko and General Iroh, and no one else," said to the guard to her right. "Neither one is inclined to keep prisoners, and I don't think we've taken anyone new lately."
Jade gulped. So this was Prince Zuko's ship. She had seen her share of him, when he had come to the North Pole and attempted to capture Aang. She didn't think too much of him or his firebending skills, not after she had seen the way Katara soundly defeated him in the Spirit Garden. Still, she was glad it was him that had captured Katara, and not Admiral Zhao.
But wait. If he was the one who had captured Katara, then why were the soldiers claiming to have no prisoners?
"Surely there must be someone down there," she said, trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice. "General Iroh specifically said for me to collect the new prisoner, and bring her to him."
"I don't remember any new prisoner," said the guard to her left. "Unless it's that old hag of a stowaway that Prince Zuko caught raiding our food supply. I was under the impression that he dropped her off at the last village."
"Maybe she's still here," said the other guard, starting to get nervous. "If the General requested the prisoner, then there must be someone down there."
"You don't remember her at all?" cried Jade, completely losing her grip on her panic. "A young girl around my age, a little taller than me, with long curly hair and blue eyes? A waterbender?"
Both soldiers turned to look at her suspiciously. "I thought you said that the General didn't bother to describe her," said one of them sharply.
Jade struggled not to become flustered. "I – I – I might have seen her before," she forced out in a squeaky voice. Her throat was becoming tight and dry with panic, and she tossed her hair and tried to calm down. "Besides, the General told me he prefers tall, blue-eyed waterbenders. And who are you to question General Iroh's orders?"
"She's right," the other soldier said. "She's merely the messenger. The General's orders are the General's orders. If he says he wants a prisoner, then there must be one down in the cells."
The soldier to Jade's right turned to her. "Follow me," he said.
Jade followed the guards through countless corriders, down innumerable staircases and through more doors than she had ever seen in her life. She was amazed at the size of the ship. Three of her entire houses back in her water tribe village would have easily fit on just one floor.
At last the guards and Jade reached the very bottom floor, the prison barracks. The deck was divided into what must have been thirty iron-enclosed cells the size of Jade's bedchamber back home, though all of them appeared to be empty. When the guards came to the very last cell at the end of the deck, Jade saw someone sitting on the floor inside. Her heart leapt.
"Katara?" she whispered, softly enough so that the guards couldn't hear her.
The woman in the cell turned around, but even before she did Jade could tell that this was not her. It was an old, pleasantly plump woman, with eyebrows so bushy that they appeared to be one continuous line of hair. Down to her waist hung a thin black braid streaked with wisps of gray. She gave an angry frown at Jade, and when she opened her mouth to speak Jade could see the rows of rotting brown teeth.
Before a word could be uttered from the woman's mouth, one of the guards spoke to her. "General Iroh requests your prescence."
The woman looked delighted and started to get up from the wooden planked floor, but Jade spoke. "No. This couldn't possibly be whom the General was talking about. Do you have any other prisoners?"
"As you can clearly see, the rest of the cells are empty," said the guard. "If General Iroh wanted the prisoner from down below, then he must have meant this woman here."
"General Iroh clearly said the, 'young lady prisoner.' This fat hag does not look anything like a young lady to me," snapped Jade, her panic beginning to rise again. The nice, young waterbender Jade would have never said such hurtful things to anyone. The expensive whore Jade thought nothing of insulting someone below her.
"You'd better take this issue to General Iroh himself, then," said the other guard nervously. "And tell him we tried. We brought you down here like he ordered. We had nothing to do with it."
"Nothing to do with what?"
The soldiers and Jade spun around to the sound of the voice. The guards instantly dropped to one knee before Prince Zuko, but Jade just stood there, wondering if highly-prized whores bowed to banished Princes. In the end, she said nothing, only fixed him with an icy stare.
Zuko seemed taken aback by her harsh glare. "Who are you?" he demanded. When she didn't answer, he turned to the men. "Who is this girl here?"
"A whore, sire," replied one of the soldiers. "Picked up by General Iroh at the last town."
Zuko looked sufficiently embarrassed. "I did not know that my uncle had hired a – a –"
"Prostitute," Jade finished for him. "That's what I prefer being called." She was surprised at how easily the words came out. Perhaps it was because the Prince was so much more handsome than she remembered, with his tall, muscular build and thick black hair pulled back in a ponytail and intriguing black eyes. She studied the mysterious scar that shrouded his left eye in grayish-pink skin, something that she hadn't taken notice of upon seeing him at the siege of the North Pole.
"Were you looking for something, er, um, ma'am?" inquired Zuko in a very polite voice.
Before the soldiers could speak up, Jade began to drawl in a flirtatious voice that shocked her. Apparently she was better at pretending to be a prostitute than she had thought. "Oh, no, darlin', I had just heard that a friend of mine, a fellow prostitute, had been hired by one of the men on this boat here, and I was seeing if maybe I could find her and get some tips for the next time I'm with General Iroh." She winked at the Prince, appalled by her own behavior, yet somehow unable to stop.
The Prince looked shocked as well, as if he hadn't expected her to be so bold and blunt. Apparently he hadn't had much experience with whores before. Jade had seen several around her water tribe village, and had found them to be much more brazen than she was being now.
"If you friend was here, she certainly wouldn't be in the prison barracks. We of the Fire Nation do not treat our – investments – so poorly. If you would like, I could go and ask my uncle if he knows where she is staying. Most likely she would be on one of the upper floors, where our guests usually accommodate themselves."
Jade was beginning to panic again. Katara was a prisoner. Somehow, she doubted that Prince Zuko would be treating his only link to the Avatar, who also happened to be the girl who had humiliated him and made him look like little more than a novice in battle, as an honored guest. But if she wasn't in the prison barracks, then where else would she be?
Perhaps Zuko knew who she was. He recognized her from the North Pole, and had seen that she was a friend of Katara's. Perhaps he was assuming that she knew where the Avatar was as well as Katara, and he knew that this was all a hoax. He was just playing with her now. He knew that she was here to rescue Katara, and he certainly wasn't going to just lead her right to the prisoner.
For a moment Jade considered telling Prince Zuko that it was all right, that she would do just fine without finding her friend and had to be going. Then she would go back on the deck and reunite with Aang, Sokka, Appa, and Momo.
No. She couldn't leave. She couldn't just abandon Katara, and leave her here to her fate. She could still hear her best friend's screams from that horrific day, the day the Fire Nation invaded the South Pole, and she thought of what would have happened to her had Katara not been there, if she had not been willing to sacrifice herself for her friend.
She also knew that Sokka wouldn't leave the ship without his sister. For that matter, she suspected that Aang would be loath to leave the girl he loved in the hands of the enemy.
She turned to look at Prince Zuko, and a spark of anger ignited. If he wanted to play games, let him. Katara was on this ship, and Jade was not leaving without her. If Zuko wanted to play with fire, he was going to get burned. Or, more appropriately, water.
"Lead the way," she said to the Prince with a coy smile.