AN: O.k. SleepingDragon13 wrote a zutara fanfic based on Beauty and the Beast, so that kind of got me thinking of how I could change other fairy tales to fit a zutara, and - wallah! Katara's Cinderella Story! Although SleepingDragon13 's masterpieece was more intuned with the movie, mine is simply based on the idea, more to my own story plot. So without further adu, chapter one! Please read and review!

Disclaimer: I would gladly exchange my annoying brothers for Avatar: The Last Airbender, but my mom would probably ground me...

Katara's Cinderella Story

Chapter One: Captured Again

Katara's head throbbed without any sign of ceasing, and the hard ground beneath her wasn't much help. That's when everything that had happened came flooding back to her. She looked around franticly, ignoring the complaints from her pounding head. Then she spotted the struggling, beaten, blue lump on the ground.

"Sokka!" Katara tried to go to her brother, yet cursed openly when she realized that her hands and feet were still bound. She struggled against the thick ropes, but to no avail.

Sokka let out a pained groan and sat up, which was rather difficult considering he too was bound. He looked Katara over carefully. Good, she wasn't hurt. She hadn't been beaten like he had been.

Katara looked at her brother. She noticed that he had winced as he sat up. His face was caked with blood and dirt, his clothes were torn, and also covered with dirt and his own blood. A worried look crossed her face.

"Sokka - " Tears filled her eyes at seeing him like this.

"Don't worry Katara, I'll be fine." Realization hit him then. "Where's Aang!" Katara's eyes grew wide.

"They must've taken him and left us here!" She looked around.

Their supplies - food, water, tools, - were all gone. When she pointed this out to Sokka he was anything but joyful.

"Those dirty, hellborne, firebeathing, - "

"Sokka." Katara said softly, although it didn't help to calm the young warrior.

"They beat me, bound all of us, robbed us, kidnapped our friend, knocked us unconsious, left us here, and they didn't even bother to untie us! " If Sokka was a firebender, he would already be fuming flames and smoke, rather than just screaming his head off about something he could do nothing about.

"Sokka let's work on getting these ropes off, then we can try to figure out everything else." He nodded his agreement and immediatly started searching for his boomerang.

It wasn't hard to find, the problem was how to get to it. The boomerang was lodged into a tree, about four yards away. Sokka had been slashed, scraped, bruised, and burned, making it difficult to sit up straight much less get that far. Seeing her brother's prediciment, Katara slowly was able to get to her feet, and hop over to the boomerang. After all, all she had was a dizzying head ache, no doubt from where she had been knocked unconsious.

Once Katara had gotten over to the tree, she realized that the boomerang was a bit higher than her head, but just a bit. This was only a slight problem, because her hands were tied behind her back. She turned around and bent over, stretching her arms out in hopes that the rope would catch on the boomerang. She sighed with relief when the ropes loosened and fell to the ground. Now, she had to get the thing out of the tree. The boomerang was lodged in, and Katara grunted with the effort. When it did come out, she lost her balance and toppled to the ground. On any other occasion, Sokka would have burst out laughing, they both knew it, but Katara simply cut the ropes that bound her feet and sprinted to Sokka.

Once she had gotten her brother freed, Katara set to work on his wounds. She got some water from a creek not far away and cleaned the dirt and blood away from his face as they formed a plan.

"Where do you think they took Aang?" Katara asked.

"To the Fire Lord, in the Fire Nation capitol, Sozun." Sokka was sure of it. "Who's men do you think they were? Obviously not Zhao's, he's dead. So either Ozia even sent a crew to do his dirty work or Zuko had caught up with us again."

"They were Zuko's, I recognized one of the higher ranking ones. How long ago do you think they left?"

"Couldn't have been too long ago, the wind hasn't blown away their foot prints." It was silent for a few moments while each thought about all of this.

Katara finally got to her feet. She had somehow just noticed that the large, fluffy bison was with them. Sokka looked rather surprised to see him too. One of Appa's legs had been burnt, which had prevented them from escaping during earlier's battle. They had burnt right through his tremendously think fur so that there was a patch of bear, bubbly, bleeding, bison skin showing. Katara immediatly went back to the creek to draw as much water as possible, making glowing, blue gloves around her hands. As she placed her hands gently on Appa's skin, the burn slowly, but surely, disappeared. After she had finish cleaning Sokka up, she did the same with his wounds.

"Now we should find a market place." Sokka turned to her. "I found five copper pieces, and we need supplies." Katara agreed and soon Appa was in the air.

x

"Mmph! Gmurphm!" The boy was screaming words the guards couldn't even understand. They were about to remove the gag from his mouth to see what he had said when they heard their captain's firm orders.

"Don't remove it from his mouth. I want him in the most fortified cell we have, with at least ten men guarding him." Prince Zuko's voice was commanding,

and directed at the three men holding the little bald boy. It seemed pretty much emotionless, but the crew knew better than that. They all knew how much he wanted to be home.

The young Avatar was thrown in a large cell, and guarded as the prince had instructed. Yet it wasn't his own prediciment that concerned him, it was his friends'. Aang, Sokka, and Katara were looking for an earthbending trainer when they had set up camp for the night. A group of Zuko's men had ambushed the three. They had beaten Sokka out of his mind, and Katara had tried to fend them of with her master waterbending, before they snuck up on them from behind, with Sokka's club, and knocking the three unconsious.

And now Aang was on the enemy's ship, on is way to the Fire Lord, where he would spend all eternity in a cell. Well, at least until the comit arrived.

I've been captured once again, and my savior of last time, is now my captor.

AN: O.K. so a little dull for the first chapter, and no Zutara stuff yet, but hey - Beauty didn't meet the Beast in the first chapter! I just had to get the point across that Aang was captured by Zuko, and Katara and Sokka have no food or supplies with very little money. What does this have to do with Cinderella? Be patient, I'll get there.