Water

Peace Offering

Though he'd finally shaved the stubble off of his head and was relatively certain that he looked normal, Zuko still felt unbalanced. He made his way up to the control room, stomping every step of the way. Was this how he normally walked? He knew that his Prince Zuko walk was a lot noisier and heavier than his Blue Spirit walk, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember how either of them usually sounded.

He blamed the waterbender for that. And for the fact that he had to go talk to Lieutenant Jee. And for the fact that he had to go to the control room at all. Normally, he could get away with sending orders up with any passing crewman if he didn't feel like making a personal appearance. But today, it wouldn't be enough to send orders to the lieutenant in writing. Today, there would be questions to answer and explanations to give, and the last thing he wanted was some lowly sailor getting bored on the way up to the control tower and reading Zuko's message.

Today, Zuko didn't have a choice, and it was all the waterbender's fault.

He stomped through the door and found Lieutenant Jee exactly where he expected, gossiping with the helmsman.

Zuko steeled himself. He'd been forced to make stupid requests before. This time shouldn't be any different.

But it was different. This time, he was stopping the ship specifically for the waterbender. And no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't come up with a better explanation to give the crew. The best he could do was tell them as little as possible.

"How far are we from the nearest port, Lieutenant?" he demanded.

Jee turned his head lazily to the side and glanced down at the nearest open map. "At a guess, I'd say we could be to Haibin by midday tomorrow."

"And what's this place like? Is it just a fishing town, or is there a market there?" Zuko should probably remember by the name alone—Uncle hadn't spent months drilling him on Earth Kingdom geography for nothing—but he was too distracted to think.

"Both." Lieutenant Jee paused. "Why? It's a bit soon to refuel, and we haven't heard of any recent sightings of the Avatar."

Zuko clenched his jaw. "I have some business to attend to."

Jee didn't seem to notice the tension in his voice. "Would've guessed that General Iroh lost one of his Pai Sho tiles again."

Zuko would have thought the same. Most of their unplanned stops had something to do with Uncle's compulsive need to buy useless trinkets.

In hindsight, that should have been his excuse. He could have claimed that Uncle was looking for—well, he couldn't think of anything, but no one ever questioned Uncle's whims. It must be nice to have that kind of unquestioned respect.

Though it would also be nice if Zuko knew how to lie. Even if he'd thought of blaming the trip to shore on Uncle, he couldn't have fooled anyone.

"Set our course," Zuko ordered. "And alert me when Haibin is in sight."

Jee nodded, his expression as close to approval as Zuko had ever seen it. "The men will appreciate the chance to go ashore."

Mid-turn, Zuko stopped. "They won't be going ashore, Lieutenant. We won't be landing either." This trip would already be a big enough waste of time. He certainly wasn't going to give the crew a chance to prolong it.

And there was the expression he was used to seeing on Jee's face. Contempt and disgust barely concealed under a taut frown. "We ought to refuel, Prince Zuko."

"Didn't you just say that it was too soon for that, Lieutenant?" Zuko did his best to match the venom in Jee's voice.

"I did, but I know how you've been driving us recently, sir. I'd rather we didn't run out of fuel in the middle of the ocean."

Zuko scowled. He hated when Jee had a point. Zuko knew his luck. If it would happen to anyone, it would happen to him. "How much longer can we make it?"

"I wouldn't count on us lasting two weeks."

Two weeks? He scoffed. Two weeks was loads of time. Of course, Zuko didn't want to stop that soon, not unless it was to capture the monk, but he couldn't imagine lasting that long without having to stop for some kind of ridiculous crisis. Uncle was on the ship, after all. If Uncle made it a week without an overpowering urge for a shopping trip in the Earth Kingdom again, Zuko would be shocked.

"We'll refuel later," Zuko said, giving Jee a pointed stare as he turned to go. "No one else is going ashore this time."


Katara sensed a change in the ship the following morning. Her meals with the general were unchanged, and the guards posted outside the cell were a slight improvement from Masao and Daiki, but something was different.

She wanted to tell herself that it was intuition, that she'd managed to sense something sinister before it happened. But the more logical side of her said that it was probably just the angle of the sun through the porthole. Before, the cell had mostly faced east, and sun had only shone into the cell in the mornings, but today the ship had turned. Now the porthole was angled south instead, and with the sun endlessly beating on the dark hull, it was growing increasingly, unpleasantly warm.

She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead and it came back glistening. There'd been almost no condensation on the hull this morning, but she could probably get enough moisture off of her own forehead if she wanted to waterbend. Not that she felt much like moving when it was this warm.

The general gave her a sympathetic smile. "I take it that you are not much accustomed to heat."

"If it gets this warm at the South Pole, we have to check if the tent caught fire." She hunched over, resting her elbows on her knees. "Can't Zuko turn the ship? I hate it enough on this stupid boat without roasting alive in here."

The general squinted up at the porthole for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "Soon, I expect. Have some more water. It should help."

Katara obeyed. As much as she wanted to take all the drinking water and hoard it somewhere so she could waterbend later, she was hot and thirsty now. The taste of cool, fresh water was almost enough to make her forget about escape for a little while.

"I hope my nephew's visit yesterday did not distress you too much," the old man said, hands folded into his sleeves. "I heard some—rather loud conversation."

She couldn't tell whether her face was growing warmer or if it was just the cell. She looked down sheepishly. Even now, she couldn't shake the feeling that it had been a mistake to yell at Zuko like that—spirits only knew what kind of revenge a firebender might take for being insulted—but nothing had come of it yet. "I said some pretty loud things."

"As did my nephew." Flickers of amusement shone through the general's mostly solemn expression. "He has spoken to very few people willing to argue so vigorously in these past few years. I cannot say whether you bested him, but he was certainly surprised."

That was weird. There was something almost like pride in the old man's voice. Was he proud of her? For yelling at Zuko?

"I get plenty of practice arguing thanks to my brother."

The general nodded. "The two of you are not so different."

Katara choked on her sip of water and coughed a few times. "How do you know if I'm anything like my brother?" she managed once her airway cleared.

"You and Prince Zuko, I mean. You are more similar than you believe."

That was even worse. Katara's eyes went huge and her whole face distorted in disgust. "I'm nothing like—"

"You have fire in your heart," the general interrupted. "As does Prince Zuko."

She curled her upper lip. That was nothing. That was less than nothing. That was some weird, poetic, metaphorical nonsense. "I'm the Avatar," she answered, grateful that the old man always sent the rest of the guards away. They had no business knowing who she really was. "I'm pretty sure I have to have fire somewhere."

The old man frowned. "That is not exactly what I meant."

She knew that. But it was a silly thing to say anyway. There was nothing unusual with being willing to fight, and she was technically a firebender. Or could be someday. After she'd learned her own element.

Somewhere below them, the roar of the engines changed, dropping from the smooth, low-pitched rumble she'd grown accustomed to and into a deeper, almost rattley sound. Katara froze, watching as the patch of sunlight slid across the floor and up the wall as the ship turned, then finally came to rest with the cell facing the east again.

She looked at the general. "What's going on?"

The engines rattled a few more times, then went silent, and her ears rang in the sudden quiet. She heard distant shouts. Whether they were from the deck or even further down in the bowels of the ship, she couldn't tell for sure.

"Have we stopped?" Setting her empty cup down on the floor, she pushed to her feet and darted across to the porthole. It looked like it. She was too far above the water to tell by sight, but the sensation of motion was gone, replaced by relative stillness interrupted only by the gentle rocking of the waves. But more importantly, there was land in sight. It might have been a mile off, but she could see the beach, the forest above that, and the slow, rolling hills even farther beyond.

Katara whipped back to face the general. "What's happening? We're not moving."

"Certainly you cannot expect us to sail forever without stopping," the old man said, finishing off his cup. "There are times when we must go ashore."

Katara shook her head. No, something about that was wrong. "We aren't docked," she pointed out.

"No, we are not."

She peered out the porthole again. It was a dull stretch of shoreline at first glance, but when she looked farther to the left, she thought she could make out the shape of a house through some of the trees. A village. They'd stopped near a village for some reason, and yet the ship wasn't going into port. Probably for her sake, she realized. If she managed to get out, her escape across the water would be slower than on foot.

"That's why you're here," she said accusingly, turning back to the old man. "You're making sure I don't escape while we're so close to land."

The general bowed his head in concession. "That is one of my purposes today, yes."

Of course. Of course he'd wanted to keep an eye on her and to make sure she finished off her water before they stopped. At this distance, even swimming to shore would be manageable without the help of her bending.

"Why are we stopping?" she demanded.

"Prince Zuko has a small errand to attend to."

Katara couldn't hold back her scoff. Of course he did. Only Zuko could stop an entire huge ship just to satisfy his own whims. That must have been one of the perks of being royalty.

She crossed her arms across her chest and tried to ignore the tightness in her throat. She used to be able to do that too. It was only ever the three of them, but she used to be able to cajole Sokka and Aang into stopping early or spending an extra night somewhere—they all took turns at it, really. Not anymore. She didn't get any choice in where she went now. Everything was left in Zuko's hands.

Would she ever get her way again?

She swallowed and pressed her lips into a tight line. Of course she would. She was going to get out. But maybe not this time. As much as it burned to see the shoreline so tantalizingly close, she didn't have enough water to bend, and the general was watching her too closely to make any real progress anyway.

She had a plan, she reminded herself. She had to be satisfied with snatching moments of solitude here and there to work on cutting her way to freedom. Even if it hurt to be patient when freedom looked so close.

Katara looked back at the general. "What are your other reasons for staying down here?" she asked, voice tight.

He brightened. "I was hoping that you would ask." He leaned to the side and reached behind his back to produce an ornate but well-worn wooden box. "Have you ever heard of Pai Sho? I think you would quite enjoy the game."


For reasons that Zuko still couldn't fathom, Uncle had insisted that he take at least one other crewman with him into Haibin. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Zuko knew Uncle was trying to make sure that he didn't get himself in trouble or wander anywhere too dangerous, but that was pointless. The coastal towns were used to seeing firebenders come and go by now. It was the inland areas and isolated roads that usually meant trouble, and Zuko wasn't going any of those places.

But Lieutenant Jee thumped along behind Zuko all the same, looking every bit as annoyed as Zuko felt. He didn't want a babysitter. He certainly didn't want Lieutenant Jee watching over his shoulder as he tried to find suitable clothes for the girl. But Jee was the best option Zuko had. Everyone else was too inclined to gossip—Jee was a gossip too, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut if ordered. Zuko just hoped that he could drill those orders firmly enough into Jee's head.

He marched into the first promising looking shop at the edge of town, Jee barely two steps behind.

Looking back over his shoulder, Zuko hissed, "Can't you wait outside or something?"

Jee shook his head. "General Iroh's orders."

Zuko did his best not to groan. He wasn't even surprised anymore. Uncle didn't have the authority to override Zuko's orders, but naturally the crew didn't act like it.

It was too late to argue, though. Zuko narrowed his eyes. "Just—back off, then. I don't want you breathing down my neck."

He turned sharply down one row of shelves in the shop, then rounded into the next before Jee could follow. He had to find the things for the waterbender quickly and somehow keep Jee from seeing any of it.

He wound his way around the shop, grabbing soap and a wooden comb off of one of the shelves, then dodged around, hoping to lose Jee's focus, until he couldn't procrastinate any longer and came face to face with a shelf full of green Earth Kingdom clothing.

Part of him wanted to keep looking. He shouldn't be buying the girl clothes, not even from a shabby Earth Kingdom shop, but there were no better options he could think of. The few spare uniforms in storage on his ship were too big for even Zuko, not that the girl would ever agree to wear them. Zuko himself had a few outfits that were less obviously military, but he was not going to lend any of his things to the girl. Just the thought of it, the memory of the amusement in Uncle's eyes at the inadvertent suggestion was enough to make his face burn. Zuko didn't need that kind of humiliation.

So Earth Kingdom clothes it had to be.

He sorted through the stacks until he found the drabbest tunic and leggings he could. He couldn't tell whether they were the right size for the girl—they looked a bit too small for Zuko, at least, but he was no great judge of that anyway, and he was not going to stand here staring at clothes any longer than he had to. He didn't want to think too hard about the waterbender's size or try to picture her wearing any of these things. His face and his ears were warm enough already. These clothes were sturdy, they were plain, and they were probably at least close enough to the girl's size that they wouldn't fall off of her. That was all that mattered.

"Shopping for the waterbender?" Jee's voice came just behind his left ear, and Zuko jumped.

Face flaming, he jerked back around. "I told you not to follow me." He bundled the clothes into a messy lump and stuffed them under his arm. "And where did you get that idea?" he added a second too late.

Jee raised one of his eyebrows. "If you were looking for a disguise, you wouldn't be blushing."

Silently, Zuko cursed himself. How did Jee keep doing that? Every idea he came up with, every possible explanation he mentioned for their trip to shore sounded like a better excuse than anything Zuko had thought of. An Earth Kingdom disguise would never work to get him any closer to the monk and the Water Tribe idiot, not with a face as recognizable as his, but at least it sounded plausible. It sounded like something that Zuko could have tried. It could have been enough to throw off the crew's suspicions about the trip to the village.

Sometimes he really wished he'd learned how to lie as a child.

Well, it was too late to turn around and use that excuse now. "I don't want to hear a single word about this, understood?" He straightened as much as he could, wishing that he was tall enough to look down his nose at the lieutenant. "That's an order, Lieutenant. No one hears a word."

Jee shrugged. "Fine by me." He finally stepped back a little.

Good. At least there wouldn't be rumors swirling around the ship. At least no one would think that Zuko had gone soft on the girl.

He elbowed his way past the lieutenant and smacked his messy bundle down in front of the clerk.

The woman behind the counter, thankfully, was uninterested, and accepted his money and folded his purchases into a small, neat package without comment. Zuko couldn't tell if she'd heard the exchange with Jee, but he decided he didn't care. His face still flamed, and he kept his eyes averted until the paper-wrapped package was crammed safely under his arm once again.

"You do realize," Jee commented on their way back to the skiff several minutes later, "that the crew is going to work out why we stopped even if I keep my mouth shut, don't you?"

Zuko shot a glare at the lieutenant. "What are you talking about?"

No one would know. The clothes were packed away, hidden under layers of scratchy brown paper, and he wasn't going to let anyone see what was inside it. They would know that Zuko had bought something, but they'd never realize what it was.

"You're bringing the waterbender a change of clothes." Jee's steely gaze bored into the side of Zuko's face. "The men are going to see her in Earth Kingdom clothes and wonder where she got them from."

Oh. Zuko stopped walking. Oh. That could be a problem. That could be a very large problem. He could already imagine the rumors that would circulate—that Zuko had gone soft, that the waterbender had somehow gained his interest or favor, that he'd been chasing the waterbender all along, that she was something more than a friend of the airbender. Parts of those things were true, tiny, tiny parts, and even the kernels of truth were dangerous. If anyone came too close to realizing that the Avatar was already on his ship—it didn't bear thinking about. It would be a disaster. And if anyone thought that Zuko had gone soft, especially where the girl was concerned, it would be another, very different disaster.

Jee turned back to look at him. "Just something to consider, Prince Zuko. Secrets can't hide in plain sight for long."


After several rounds of Pai Sho—the general assured Katara that the games were usually longer, and she wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be a good thing or not—she thought she was beginning to understand the rules. She didn't mind the game, not really. Sokka would probably enjoy it more than she did, but it was better than having nothing to do. And the general was a surprisingly patient teacher. He told Katara that there was plenty more to learn, and she didn't mind the prospect of playing again. But she did wish that she was learning to play it somewhere other than a prison cell on Zuko's ship.

The cell had cooled, and the engines started up again before the general finally left her. Katara stared out the porthole as the ship pulled away from the shore again. She should have tried to escape. She would have if she'd had any water left by the time the general left her alone. With a sigh, she returned to the bunk and stared across at the dingy curtain enclosing the little bathroom in the corner. She'd have to start saving water somewhere, hiding it until she finally had enough to break the lock and escape all at once.

Maybe the sink would do. She could freeze the drain shut, and then use the basin to store her bending water until she had a chance to put it to use.

A set of footsteps halted just outside the bars, and from the corner of her eye, she recognized Zuko. Great. He was the last person she wanted to see.

Not looking his way, she clenched her hands on her knees. "What are you doing here? Did you have fun going ashore while your crew was stranded on this stupid boat?"

Oddly, he didn't react to that. Instead, he raised a hand, and there was a strange crinkling sound. Katara turned her head just enough to see that he was holding a package wrapped up in dull brown paper.

"I brought you some fresh clothes. I can't have you stinking up my ship."

She bristled. She did not smell. It had been a while since she'd been able to bathe, but she was just grimy, not stinky.

"Even if I did smell, whose fault do you think that would be?" She shot a reproachful look out of the corner of her eye. "That's the price you pay for kidnapping me."

Again, he ignored her. His whole face was blotchy and red, but the shadow of stubble where his hairline should have been was gone now. Finally. She wondered if he'd finally been embarrassed enough to shave it after she called his hair stupid. She hoped so. It would serve him right.

Zuko turned the package sideways and started to wedge it through the bars, and Katara sprang up from the bunk.

"No way." She shoved the package back at him. "If you think for a second that I'm going to put on some stupid Fire Nation clothes, you need to get your head checked."

He pushed the package her way again. "I wouldn't want you to wear my nation's clothes. I just don't want to have to smell unwashed waterbender."

"Uh-uh." She planted her feet and pushed back. "I don't smell, and I'm not wearing red."

As her arm raised, she got a small whiff—okay, so she wasn't as fresh as she could have been. But she definitely didn't smell as bad as he was implying she did.

"I'm not asking you to wear red!" he shouted, bracing himself to mirror her as he tried to wrestle the package past her hands.

Katara refused to give up that easily. It was a matter of principle. She wouldn't accept anything from him. She wouldn't wear anything from the Fire Nation, much less a prison uniform. She'd only made an exception at Haishui for Haru's sake.

For some reason, Zuko was equally insistent. "Just take it!" He changed tactics, grabbing the paper at the top of the package and trying to wrestle it up and over her hands.

There was a loud tearing sound, and the package ripped in half, spilling all its contents between the bars, and Zuko crashed face-first into the door. With a yell of pain, he pulled back, grimacing and rubbing the spots where his forehead had met the steel.

Katara barely noticed. She stared down at the disorderly mound of fabric. It was green. A dull, dusty green, but green.

She nudged the pile with her toe, pushing aside a rumpled, wrinkled tunic to reveal a matching set of leggings, a wooden comb, and soap.

"Earth Kingdom clothes?" she wondered aloud. To her surprise, they looked—not terrible. Plain, sure, but the fabric wasn't terribly coarse, and the seams all looked even enough.

She rounded on him again, arms crossed. "What are you trying to pull?"

He glared, still rubbing his forehead. "What could I be trying to pull? I brought you clean clothes, that's all." He pulled his hand away from his forehead and checked his fingertips—the skin wasn't broken, but already there were two distinct, slightly swollen lines where the bars had met with his head.

"Is this what you went ashore for?"

Zuko threw his hands out to the sides. Apparently the blow to the head didn't bother him too much. As far as Katara was concerned, that said a lot. That he had a thick skull and probably not much inside of it, for instance.

"Where else would I get Earth Kingdom clothes from?"

Katara stared at him. Really stared. Then she stared at the green tunic and leggings again. Not a prison uniform. Not red either. She narrowed her eyes up at Zuko again. "You've never had a prisoner before, have you?"

"I—what—why would that matter?" Exhaling so forcefully that a few sparks flew past his lips, he turned away and stomped across the corridor. "I'm turning your water on for one minute, then you'll have five minutes to finish cleaning yourself up. If you don't have your rags ready to go to the laundry by then, I'm burning the new clothes and you can just live in your own stink forever."

Katara gaped at him. "Why would—"

Zuko turned the valve, and she heard and felt the water rush down the pipe and into the little bathroom. "Your minute's started. Stop wasting time."

She stared a second longer, but Zuko wouldn't look her way—he leaned against the opposite wall, staring stubbornly toward the steps. At least he wasn't trying to watch anything. And there was a curtain—and the water was turned on. Katara kicked the mound of clothes toward the sink, flung the curtain shut behind her, and opened the tap.

The water that came out at first was dull and rusty-looking, and Katara let it run until it turned clear again. This was her chance. The moment the water ran clear, she froze a plug-like shape into the drain, and let the water keep flowing, slowly filling up the basin. She had water to bend with. Finally. Her heart wouldn't stop racing. All she had to do now was find an opportunity to use it, cut her way out of the cell, figure out where Zuko was keeping her necklace, and—she glanced down. And in the meantime, it wouldn't hurt anything to actually use the soap. She could still bend with the soapy, grimy water once she'd cleaned herself up.

She'd just finished washing her face and releasing her hair from its braid—or the tangled mess that used to be a braid—when Zuko spoke again.

"—four, three, two, one." There was a metallic screech, and the water from the tap slowed, then stopped. "Finish up. I'll be back in five minutes to take your things to the laundry."

She stared at the half-full basin of water. It was more than she'd expected to be able to gather up in several days—weeks, even—from condensation on the hull and spare droplets from her drinking water. A proper supply of bending water at her disposal for the first time in ages.

It was enough to wash her hair, too, if she was careful to bend the water back into the basin when she was finished. She looked down at the messy tangle of loose curls hanging over her shoulder. It would be better to throw off suspicion, she told herself. If she didn't wash her hair, Zuko would be suspicious. And if she were being honest, she just really wanted to wash her hair. It was long overdue by now.

By the time Zuko's footsteps came her way again, she had changed into the fresh clothes, and felt properly clean for the first time in days. Both the tunic and leggings were too large for her, but if she cinched the sash around the middle tight enough, there didn't seem to be any danger of anything falling off. She perched on the edge of the bunk, working the comb through her hair, carefully pulling the extra beads of moisture out with each stroke, and gathering them all into a small orb. Once she was through, she'd add the water back into the basin, and freeze the whole thing solid to keep it from evaporating before she had a chance to start work on the door.

"Are you finished?" Zuko's voice came from around the corner, and Katara could tell by the shadows in the corridor that he was hesitating just out of sight.

She groaned. It seemed that Zuko had kept his word. Annoyingly. It couldn't have been much less than five minutes since he left her alone, but she wished she'd had more time. "Yes," she called back.

There was a sigh, and Zuko stepped into sight again.

Katara fixed him with a glare. "The clothes are too big. And you can't have the comb back. I'm keeping it."

He rolled his eyes. "What a tragedy."

"And there'd better not be a single thing wrong with my clothes when they come back," she added, doing her best to sound intimidating. "Or I'll make sure you regret it."

Zuko grunted by way of reply. "I regret almost everything where you're concerned." He stooped, bunched her grimy clothes up into a ball, and tossed them into a sack. Then without sparing her another glance, he turned and stalked away.

Katara frowned at the empty corridor as the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut and a different set of footsteps descended her direction. She very much doubted that Zuko was telling the truth, but if he really had regrets, she should have asked for her necklace back.

Next time, she told herself. She'd ask—no, demand her necklace back the next time she saw him, and then there would be nothing standing between her and freedom. Except for the bars. And they wouldn't stand for very long either.


Author's Note:

I can't remember when I first realized that this whole scenario with Zuko buying Katara clothes had the potential to be veeeeery sketchy if I approached it wrong. But I liked the non-creepy version that lived in my head so much that I had to try it, and I think it worked. I hope it worked.

I just need Zuko to grudgingly do nice things for Katara until he has to accept his softer side again, okay?

Just like last time, I'm writing this author's note suuuuuuper early because NaNo is calling my name. By the time you read this, I'm hoping to be drafting well beyond Chapter 30 (I'd better be past Chapter 30. I'm probably only a couple hundred words from the end of that one and it's still October when I'm writing this note), and should hopefully have a couple more oneshots started too. If things go according to plan, I'll be posting something every Sunday in December (oneshots on the weekends between Ice & Smoke updates), then dive headfirst into weekly updates for 2021!

See you back here in two more weeks! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, and feel free to visit me on Tumblr (soopersara)!