Water

The Fire Nation Ship: Part 1

"This isn't all of it."

"It's my uncle's weight in gold. That's the price we agreed on. No airbender, no extra gold."

Crouched over the sacks of money, Jun cocked her head to the side and stared up at Zuko from the corner of her eyes. "Not for the monk. For damages. With Nyla out of commission, I'm out of work. Until he can run on that leg again—"

Zuko spluttered. He didn't have time to argue with the bounty hunter, but he certainly couldn't afford to dump extra money into her lap on a stupid whim. "How is it my fault that your rat can't handle its own poison?"

"Shirshu. And it's venom."

For a moment, Zuko could do nothing but gape. That took nerve. If he weren't so infuriated, he might have almost admired her for it. "I don't care!" he eventually burst out. "Poison, venom, whatever. I'm not paying you extra."

"What happened? Yesterday you were willing to sell the clothes off your back for—"

"I was willing to pay for the waterbender and the monk. I'm not giving you extra money for doing half your job." He paused, crossing his arms. "If you're going to go back for the monk, I might be willing to honor our original deal."

Jun rolled her eyes and stood. "I was under the impression that you were in a hurry. You have a week to wait here until Nyla's ready to work again?"

Zuko started to reply, but Jun cut him off.

"What about something to track him with? That necklace you've got is just going to lead me to you and your girlfriend again." Her gaze cut down to his wrist, where the pendant dangled just past the edge of his sleeve. Zuko felt his face heat, and he tugged his sleeve further down. "Maybe you weren't paying attention, but that's how this works. Nyla can only track with a scent. So—" she held out a hand and waggled her fingers expectantly. "Hand it over, Princey, if you've got something."

His heart sank. Aside from the Avatar herself, he'd taken nothing. Her pack had spilled its contents the moment it hit the ground—there were plenty of things he could have taken, plenty of things that could have carried the monk's scent, but it hadn't occurred to Zuko to even look. For all he knew, it was all still there, the keys to capturing the monk strewn across the path along with the Avatar's things.

Except they probably weren't. By now, the airbender would be back along with his bison, and both the Water Tribe idiot and the older warrior would be ready to fight again. Even if the Avatar's things were still where he'd left them, even if Zuko knew what to look for in the jumbled mess, he couldn't go back now. The risk would be too great.

His stomach churned unpleasantly. "No. I don't have anything with the monk's scent."

Jun shrugged. "Can't help you, then."

Uncle emerged from below deck, face flushed, and puffed his way across to them. He stopped a few paces away, bent forward with his hands on his knees, then straightened, still red-faced.

"How is our business proceeding, Prince Zuko?"

Zuko shot his most scathing look at Jun. "Apparently this con artist can't find the monk."

"Don't blame me because you couldn't think ahead, Pouty."

He scowled deeper. "I think we're done here."

Uncle looked disappointed, but he bowed deeply in Jun's direction. "It has been such a pleasure. I had hoped that our collaboration might be extended—"

Jun raised an eyebrow, her mouth pulling to the side in disgust. "I hadn't."

"The feeling is mutual," Zuko snapped.

He caught a disapproving look from Uncle and set his jaw. The bounty hunter had caused enough grief that Zuko deserved a bit of rudeness. Uncle could make nice if he wanted, but Zuko refused to do the same.

Fortunately, Jun didn't seem interested in niceties either. Before Uncle could make his usual apologies for Zuko's manners, Jun held up a hand.

"Save it, old man. This job's already been more trouble than it's worth. Let's not drag it out any longer." She hefted one of the bags of gold onto her shoulder and stared expectantly at Zuko. "Well? You could at least help me move all of this down to Nyla."

Zuko's eye twitched. He wasn't an errand boy. He would do no such thing. "Lieutenant Jee," he shouted, not breaking his gaze. "Have someone get this criminal and her money off of my ship."

"Prince Zuko," Uncle warned.

Jun rolled her eyes and turned toward the ramp. "I'd say that it's been a pleasure doing business with you both," she called, not looking back, "but I'm not one for lying."

Zuko scowled after her and kept scowling as Lieutenant Jee and a few of the other men grudgingly came forward and thumped down the ramp after Jun. This was meant to be a moment of triumph, but his stomach may as well have been filled with coils of knotted rope. He had his target. That was supposed to be enough.

Uncle clasped his shoulder. "Perhaps it would be wise to see how our young guest is adjusting to her accommodations."

For just a second, Zuko's scowl cracked and he met Uncle's gaze. Then he shook off the hand and let his expression settle back into a glower. "Not now, Uncle. And she's a prisoner, not a guest."

There was a short pause, then Uncle gave a quiet hmpf, but made no further comment.

Good. Zuko's stomach was knotted enough without Uncle asking questions and forcing him to think about all of this.

He tilted his chin up to scan the sky. Still no sign of the monk or his bison. Zuko couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, there was a chance, however slight, that if the monk appeared, Zuko could capture him. On the other, Zuko remembered all too well what had happened to his ship when the Avatar—the other Avatar—the waterbender—had faced him at the South Pole. He didn't want to pay for repairs like that again. He wasn't even convinced that his rusted old ship would survive the Avatar's wrath long enough to need repairs.

More importantly, he couldn't be certain that the monk and the Water Tribe oaf wouldn't snatch the Avat—waterbender straight out of his hands. Zuko couldn't take that chance. It had already taken far too much time and effort to complete half his mission. He would not lose what little progress he'd made.

The moment that Lieutenant Jee and the other crewmen set foot on the deck, Zuko turned toward his cabin.

"Set sail, Lieutenant," he bellowed as he stomped across the deck.

"Uh, Prince Zuko—"

"Just do it! How difficult is it to follow orders?"

Jee made a prolonged grumbling noise before he shouted back, "Not at all, sir. But you haven't mentioned where we're sailing to."

"I've always been partial to the southwestern colonies, myself," another man added, and a ripple of laughter passed through the crewmen on deck.

Zuko's vision flashed red and he stopped in his tracks. He couldn't stand for that disrespect, but as quickly as the rage came, it was replaced by uncertainty. Where were they going? Where should they go? They couldn't stay, not when the airbender might stage an attempt at rescue, they couldn't flee back to the Fire Nation, not without the monk, and they couldn't sail too far away. Zuko still needed to keep the monk within reach.

"North," he decided aloud. "Sail north." He'd decide on a destination later, once they were away from land, away from the threat of the airbender and the Avatar's idiot brother.

Jee gave the most sarcastic bow he could muster, and Zuko started to turn away again.

"Prince Zuko," Uncle called. "Our guest?"

He scowled and turned toward his cabin again. "I'll deal with her later, Uncle."


When the barred steel door clanged shut behind her, Katara sprang back toward it. Or at least that was the idea. Her legs were still a bit numb below the knee, so when she flung herself off of the bunk and toward the door, she lurched unsteadily across the open space and barely caught herself before slamming into the bars headfirst.

The three firebenders who'd dragged her down to the cell looked back at her, then shrugged and formed a little huddle in the corridor, gossiping and laughing.

Hands fumbling—she couldn't decide whether it was a lingering effect of the venom or plain, unfiltered terror—she grabbed the bars and yanked. They rattled in response. She shook them harder. They rattled louder.

Her heart sat in her throat. She couldn't be captured. She couldn't. She had to escape, she had to get back to the others.

The oldest of the firebenders, a man with limp gray hair and wispy sideburns, turned back to her and barked, "Enough of that noise."

Katara's face curled into the deepest scowl she could muster. She felt a bit like crying, but she wouldn't. Not here. Not in front of these people.

"Let me out!" she screamed. She worked her way over to the lock, shook it, rattled it, and pushed against it. Then she tried to pull the door upward, and her half-numb legs nearly gave out underneath her.

The youngest of the firebenders looked her way. "I'm sure Prince Zuko would have something to say about it if we did let you out."

There was something about his tone, something too light, too casual, and it grated on her nerves.

"Let me out or I'll—" She wrapped both hands around the lock mechanism and pulled as hard as she could. Unfortunately, neither her grip nor her footing was quite as sure as she'd hoped, and her feet skidded out from underneath her. With a loud, metallic thud, she landed hard on her backside.

"Hurt yourself," the third man, an almost-bald, crooked-toothed soldier, finished for her. "No skin off my nose. Enjoy fighting with the door."

Stung, Katara stared up from her place on the steel floor. How were they all so nonchalant about this? They'd captured her, that was a big deal. Her whole life was turned upside down and these people hardly seemed to care.

Half-numb and still wobbly, she pulled herself onto the narrow bunk. Was capturing an enemy really that inconsequential to them? Was ripping someone away from her family and friends so insignificant, so common for them that they could just—laugh about it?

Her heart raced and her breath came too sharp and too fast. For all the time she'd spent running from Zuko, she'd never given any thought to what would happen if it all went wrong. And now he'd done it, and for the life of her, Katara couldn't figure out what happened next.

Maybe he'd take her to a prison somewhere—a place like Haishui but built to hold waterbenders. They'd talked about places like that when she was at Haishui. Or maybe it wouldn't be quite that direct. Maybe he'd deliver her to some sort of military base nearby or have her transferred to a larger ship so she could be more easily transported. Maybe there was a place where they could lock her up until a prison ship could come to fetch her. Or maybe Zuko would take her all the way to the Fire Nation and personally hand her over to the Fire Lord.

A chill ran down her spine, and she hugged her knees to her chest. That was probably it. Zuko would take her to the Fire Lord and then—then she would be imprisoned or hurt or killed or worse.

A heavy, frozen knot of dread found its way into her throat. Right. This was why she'd never given any thought to what would happen if things went wrong. Dwelling on all the bad things that could happen just made her feel vaguely sick and completely, utterly useless.

She didn't need to feel useless right now. She had to think. There had to be a way out of this cell. All she had to do was find it.


He stomped all the way back to his cabin, slammed the door after him, and flopped face-first onto his bunk. This was supposed to feel different. Capturing the Avatar was supposed to be Zuko's highest point, but instead—he rolled onto his back and held his arm over his head, watching the pendant dangle from his wrist, the light catching the pearly, engraved surface with every slight shift. Instead, he was only halfway to his goal. Instead, everything seemed even more impossible than it had before. Capturing the girl had taken long enough, and she was untrained. The monk, on the other hand—Uncle had been right about the monk. The child was a master.

Zuko could defeat a master. He had defeated a master. The burn Zhao had left behind as proof was still red and scabbed over the middle. But he'd never defeated an airbending master before. No one still alive had even fought one.

A slippery little shit, Jun's voice echoed in his mind. Jun was right about the monk too. He was slippery. He was quick, and he was agile, and his fighting—or his insistence on avoiding it—was like nothing Zuko had ever seen before. How was he meant to defeat someone who wouldn't fight? How could he catch someone whose specialty was evasion?

With enough time, enough encounters with the monk, maybe Zuko could learn his tricks and figure out a better strategy. With enough time. Zuko didn't have the luxury of time. He had the Avatar. Or the Avatar he'd recognized since the South Pole at least—he had to stop calling her that before he let it slip in front of his crew—but that wasn't enough. He needed the airbender too. He needed both Avatars, or Father would—Father would—

Zuko sat straight up and stared at the necklace dangling from his wrist for a long moment before he shoved it farther beneath his sleeve. He couldn't think about that. He couldn't think about what Father would do, because he would never face Father without both Avatars in hand. Zuko was a failure, but he wasn't stupid. Not that stupid, anyway.

He clenched his hands into fists, then slowly allowed them to relax as he exhaled. He had the girl. Three years into his mission, and he was halfway through. The second half couldn't possibly take another three years, not when he had a rough idea of where the monk was. But his stomach wouldn't stop squirming and tying itself into knots. He hated this. Everything about it. He should be going home, not sailing even farther up the Earth Kingdom coastline, still searching for the other Avatar.

For just a second, he considered writing to Father. Maybe if Father knew what Zuko had accomplished, he would be happy. Maybe finding one Avatar would be enough. It was still more than any of his ancestors had managed, and that had to mean something.

But the monk was the Avatar the world was expecting. The monk was the Avatar that Father would recognize. Father hadn't seen the way the girl wrecked Zuko's ship, wielding two elements at once, her eyes aglow. Father would never believe it, even if he read Zuko's letters. And Zuko was fairly certain that Father never read his letters. Three years without a single response sent a clear enough message.

Again, his stomach twisted, and with a frown, Zuko lay back again, staring at the rusting seams in the ceiling. He'd find a way to capture the monk. He had to.

There was a roaring sound beneath her, and Katara thought she felt the ship beginning to move. She scrambled to her feet—or she did the best she could, with her limbs still a bit tingly and uncoordinated—and peered out the small, round porthole. She could see only a sliver of land through the glass, and as the rumbling continued, the sliver shrank until she could no longer see the shoreline, just the choppy, grayish sea.

Behind her, the firebenders mumbled a few more seconds, then tramped away, boots heavy and loud in the metal bowels of the ship.

Katara watched over her shoulder as they retreated, then let out a slow, shuddering breath when the door at the top of the steps slammed shut and she found herself alone. She was locked up. That was bad. The ship had left shore and was making its way out to sea as quick as it could sail. That was worse. But the firebenders had finally left her alone, and that,at least, was less-bad. As long as she was alone, she could search for a way out of the cell without rousing suspicion.

Planting her feet as firmly as she could—once she got out of here, she was going to give Zuko such an earful before she froze him into a block of ice—she made her way to the nearest corner.

Practically the entire cell was steel. Steel walls, steel floor, steel ceiling, steel bars blocking her way to the corridor. Even the bunk was steel, though there was a thin, cushioned mat over the metal slats. Maybe there was a hatch or a vent, or something—she raised the edge of the mat just enough to peer underneath. No luck. Just more plates of steel, edges trimmed with streaks of rusty brown.

With a huff, she dropped the mat back into place and trailed her hand along the wall as she worked her way around the corner and along the outer wall. The hull could be promising. If she could find a way to punch through the steel, she could drop straight out into the sea, and then—well, she'd have to worry about that when she figured out how to do it. She tapped the hull with her knuckles, and it gave a dead thunk in response. Too thick. Of course it was. She'd rammed the ship into an iceberg with all the force she could muster in the Avatar State, and somehow it had survived the impact. Of course it would be too sturdy to poke holes in the hull. This ship wasn't exactly suited to housing prisoners, but it was built to withstand war.

With a sigh, she let her head thump against the wall. That wasn't going to be her way out. Straightening, she inspected the porthole instead. That looked a bit more promising. Glass could be broken, and the round frame holding the pane in place looked like it could be coaxed out with the right tools. She didn't have the right tools, but maybe she could find them.

But the porthole was small, scarcely wider than her face. Squeezing her head out into the open air would do her no good if the rest of her body couldn't follow.

The far end of her cell was half-obscured by a heavy-soot colored curtain. Katara threw it aside and was met with the sight of a tiny, rather sad-looking bathroom. Well, that answered one question she hadn't thought to ask. She wouldn't need permission to use the toilet, but she wouldn't be released from this cell for it either.

On a whim, she tried the tap, but no water came. She traced the pipes up the wall, along the edge of the ceiling, and out into the corridor, where a valve on the wall interrupted the pipe. Perfect. They'd given her a bathroom, but no water. No means of bending. Even the toilet was dry, with a little hatch at the bottom that opened with a lever to let all the contents drop out the bottom to—she didn't bother thinking that part through. It might be possible to bend with that, but she had no desire to experiment.

Letting the curtain hang open, she made her way across the cell again—her feet a bit less numb and a bit more sure than before—and perched on the edge of the bunk to survey the space again. There was a small vent in the ceiling over the little corner bathroom, and the porthole, and the barred door. Everything else was plates of steel, heavy, slightly rusted steel.

Somehow, she had to find a way to get out. She had to escape. Flexing her hands in hopes of bringing the last bits of sensation back to her fingertips, she wracked her mind for a plan.


For some reason, his right leg took the longest to return to normal. His fingertips were numb and too clumsy to grip anything in less than three tries, but his leg was worse. Although he could stand, the right foot sent hot, tingling jolts up clear up his side and threatened to buckle every time he put weight on it. It was just like when he crouched too long over an ice fishing hole and the circulation got cut off. Except no matter how many times he stomped his foot to bring the feeling back, it didn't work.

But he didn't have time to think about that. Aang had come back, and then Appa appeared, and Momo. Leg still numb and tingly, Sokka clambered up into the saddle.

Or he tried to. Several times. Grabbing the edge of the saddle while his hands were still a bit wobbly was more difficult than it should have been, but on the fourth or fifth try, he managed to slither his way in.

"Sokka?" Aang sounded uncertain, and Sokka looked back for just a second. "Need some help?"

Sokka looked away again and crawled toward the reins, his tingly leg half-dragging behind him. If he was fast enough, maybe Appa could catch up with the firebenders before they managed to take Katara away. Maybe they could swoop low enough that Appa could snag her right off the back of that big, nasty mole creature, and Sokka could fly them all back to safety. Maybe he could find some mountains or an island—somewhere Zuko couldn't find them.

"I got all of her things," Aang announced, voice bright, with just a hint of uncertainty around the edges. He leapt up into the saddle and placed the pack neatly in the pile of other supplies. "Sokka? Um—about earlier—"

Earlier? What was earlier—oh. That.

Sokka shook his head. "Not now, Aang." He made it to the front of the saddle and strained forward to reach the reins. "We have to worry about Katara first."

Aang might have nodded, but from the corner of his eye, Sokka couldn't really tell. There was a yellowish blur overhead, then Aang thumped down on Appa's neck, missing Sokka's head by inches. "Right! Appa, yip-yip!"

An unpleasant sourness filled his stomach. Sokka wanted to do that. He wanted to take the reins to fly after his sister. He was the only one who understood how serious this was, he had to take the lead to get there in time—he stopped and shook himself. No. It didn't matter who was flying. As long as they got there in time, as long as they could catch up with the firebenders before Katara was out of their reach, nothing else mattered.

But he hated feeling like this. Like he was tied in place, unable to do anything useful. That was his little sister in the firebenders' slimy grasp. Katara was his responsibility. He was the one who was supposed to protect her in the first place, and he ought to be the one rescuing her.

They swept low over the edge of the forest, and Sokka caught a glimpse of blue through the trees. He slid to the edge of the saddle and dangled over the edge long enough to give Bato a passing wave. Hopefully that would be enough—hopefully Bato would see that Sokka was fine and understand that they were going after Katara.

It didn't matter anyway. They'd be back. As soon as Sokka got Katara back, they'd meet up with Bato again, and Sokka would explain everything. Hopefully Bato wouldn't worry too much in the meantime. It would be fine. It had to be.

"We're going the right way, aren't we?" Aang shouted over the wind. "I thought the tracks were heading back to the coast, but I couldn't really tell—"

Sokka flopped to the front of the saddle again. This numb, tingly leg was getting old real fast. "I think so. That's the way they rode off." He strained his eyes toward the coastline. No sign of anything yet, no ship, no firebenders, nothing. But Zuko had captured Katara. Zuko had a ship. It wouldn't make sense for him to take Katara anywhere else. He grabbed Aang's shoulder. "Can't you go any faster?"

Aang glanced back. "Not really."

Sokka's pulse spiked. "What's that supposed to mean? We have to go faster. My little sister is out there."

An uneasy look flashed over Aang's face, then he looked forward again. "I mean that we could go faster if the wind was going the other way. But it's not, so—"

Sokka didn't wait to hear the rest. He hung half out of the saddle, scanning the ground as they drew nearer to the water. It was hard to tell from this height, but he thought he could see the tracks continue beneath them in the sand, down along the beach. Then there were darker scuffmarks in the sand where the dry layer had been disrupted, leaving the darker, wet sand exposed, and a deep wedge cut into the sand in almost the exact shape of a ramp on a Fire Nation ship.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

Sokka whacked Aang's shoulder and pointed downward. "They were here. See that? They were right down there."

His stomach did a series of backflips. Zuko had been too fast. Sokka should have expected that. For all the times that Zuko's plans had failed up until now, he wasn't an idiot. Not completely, anyway. He must have known that they would come after Katara and sailed off as quick as he could, and now—now she was gone.

Aang looked back at Sokka, eyes wide. "So what do we do now?"

Sokka clamped his hands on the rim of the saddle and sat up as straight as he could. "We keep flying. We have to get Katara."


Author's Note:

I'm back!

So I survived Zutara Week once again (wooo! And I really love the things I came up with, so if you haven't read them, now's your chance!), took a week off from writing to get some stuff done around my house and get a head start on a new project to make my fics more accessible (podfics! So many podfics! Check my AO3 if you're interested!), and I still managed to come back with two new chapters within a month! Someday real soon, I'll get this writing schedule thing completely figured out.

I really can't express how excited I am to finally dig into this capture (but not Capture-Fic) plotline. Like I mentioned in my notes in the last chapter, I know this can be kind of a sticky area to venture into with Zutara fics, so if anyone has questions or concerns, or just wants spoilers so they know what to expect, let me know! This is going to be so much fun, and I can't wait to get farther into it!

Reviews are always appreciated!