Water
Typhoon
Keeping pace with Zuko's ship was much easier after Sokka had words with Aang. Sure, he'd sat up for most of two nights to make absolutely certain that Aang wouldn't wander off and get himself into trouble again, but Aang hadn't tried to leave. And after some time, Sokka was able to finally relax and focus on the journey ahead.
Aang's relentless cheeriness had dulled somewhat too. At times, Sokka did feel a little guilty about that, but at least Aang seemed to understand the gravity of the situation now. At least he was trying to think about the consequences and find ways to help Katara without endangering himself first. Even if he didn't have Sokka's knack for strategy, at least Aang was willing to listen and help.
Their supplies, on the other hand, were becoming more of a problem. He'd never really noticed it before, but Aang could eat a lot. Not as much as Sokka, of course, but their food supply was still dwindling faster than he expected. With Katara gone, every two days' worth of food should have lasted them three. But apparently not. They'd run out of rice yesterday, and their sack of lentils was nearly gone too—not that Sokka was sure how to cook lentils—and Aang wouldn't eat meat. Sokka still thought that was weird, but he was trying not to question it.
Weirdness aside, though, Aang's aversion to meat was a problem for Sokka. Meat was easy. Between fishing and setting snares around their camp overnight, Sokka could usually get enough meat for two people. That did perfectly well for him and Katara, and it could have been enough for him and Aang too. But Aang wouldn't eat it. And Sokka didn't have the faintest idea where to find food that wasn't meat. Except for at a market. And the coin pouch felt a bit too light for a shopping trip.
"I can find some more berries," Aang volunteered when Sokka mentioned it first thing in the morning. "And I think there's a lot of nuts at this time of the year."
Sokka bit back his instinct to ask whether Aang could tell a poisonous berry from an edible one. No, it probably wasn't the time for that conversation.
"That's great Aang, but I don't think that's going to be enough for you to live on." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "We should go into town anyway. Maybe we could find weapons or something to take down Zuko's crew." He didn't want to admit that he still didn't know how to do that. He was the plan guy. He was supposed to know what to do in situations like this. Maybe if he was lucky, looking at a load of weapons and tools would give him something to work with.
"But I thought you said we were almost out of money."
Sokka nodded. "We are. It can't be that hard to earn money, though." He couldn't see how it could be hard. People needed stuff done, and they'd pay to have someone do it. Someone tough like Sokka. He puffed out his chest. "Anyone would be glad to hire me."
Aang nodded thoughtfully. "It would be cool if we ran into one of my old friends again."
Sokka stared. Had he even been listening?
Scratching Momo behind the ears, Aang added, "Like Bumi. We didn't have to work for the money he gave us."
That did make a bit more sense. Sokka rubbed his chin. It sounded ridiculous to look for a hundred-and-twelve-year-old friend of Aang's, but that hadn't stopped them from meeting King Bumi. Ridiculous or not, he was definitely a hundred and twelve years old, and definitely real.
"Do you have any other old friends who might still be around?"
Aang looked up toward the sky, brows drawn in thought. "Not in the Earth Kingdom. My friend Kuzon in the Fire Nation, maybe?"
An old Fire Nation friend. For some reason, Sokka could only picture King Bumi dressed up in red and wearing one of those stupid, pointy firebender helmets and pointy boots.
He grimaced. "That doesn't help us very much. Even if we knew where to find him, we can't waste time, or we'll lose Zuko's ship."
And even if they did have enough time to fly to the Fire Nation, track down some old, probably senile friend of Aang's, beg money off of him, and then find their way back, Sokka wouldn't want to. Crescent Island had been more than enough time on Fire Nation soil to last him a lifetime, and King Bumi was enough crazy hundred-and-twelve-year-old to last a good long time too.
"Yeah, I know." Aang leaned back on his hands. "It would be cool, though." He paused. "Maybe I should try to earn some money too."
Sokka nearly choked. "No. Uh-uh. Nope."
"Why not? We could get money for our supplies a lot faster."
"Yeah, but you have the entire Fire Nation out looking for you, and you're the most noticeable person I've ever met." Sokka ignored the crestfallen look on Aang's face. "No, you'll have to keep Appa and Momo out of trouble, and—I don't know, pick berries or something. I won't take too long." Probably just a day. That ought to be enough time to earn some money and buy provisions to last another week or two.
It took a bit more cajoling and convincing before Sokka was satisfied that Aang would stay put—or at least out of sight—and set off toward the village. He didn't know what kind of work to look for. Maybe he'd be lucky enough to find someone who would pay him to carry heavy crates or something like that. A manly job like that would be ideal.
He came up over a rise in the path and saw the village and its busy harbor take shape before him. Sokka grinned. Or he could find work on a fishing boat. That would be even better.
Katara passed her bending water from one had to the other, keeping an impatient eye trained on the guard in the corridor. Though she'd been careful to freeze the water she'd saved in the sink several times over the night, it kept dwindling smaller, and she still hadn't had an opportunity to get to work on the door. All she could do without arousing suspicion was to use the condensation from the hull and work on her regular bending forms.
It felt good to practice again, she had to admit that much. But she'd be much happier about waterbending practice when she was back on dry land with Sokka and Aang.
She glared at Taro. He was probably the least awful of all the guards she'd been left with so far, but she really wanted was a little time alone to make a start on her escape. No matter how comparatively pleasant Taro may be, she couldn't do that with him around.
"Where's the general?" she asked sharply. "He's normally down here by now."
Taro shrugged. "How would I know? General Iroh must be busy."
Katara groaned. She'd figured as much. It wasn't so much that she was hungry for breakfast—she was a little—but between the comings and goings, she could usually expect a few minutes to herself. Not enough to free herself completely, but certainly enough to start.
Taro watched her as she streamed the water from one hand to the other and back again. "Where'd you learn your waterbending?"
Katara frowned, dropping into a stronger stance to begin her other forms. "I taught myself. Some of it by experimenting, some of it from old scrolls."
"Never had a teacher?"
She shook her head. Gran-Gran had told her stories about the old days when the waterbenders were around. There had been that little boy on Kyoshi Island who lent her his scroll. And Haru had given her a few suggestions based on his earthbending, but even that hadn't made much difference.
"Huh. Seems like you're doing pretty well, considering."
Katara spread her water into a fine film and sent it sailing across the cell like a wave before hauling it back in. "How would you know? Have you seen many waterbenders?"
Taro shrugged. "No. But I've seen plenty of bending, and you've got good control." He leaned back in his chair and started to say something else, but was interrupted by a deep, splitting crack that faded away to distant rumbling.
Katara jumped. "What was that?"
"Thunder," Taro answered. "You've never heard thunder before?"
Of course she hadn't. Thunderstorms didn't happen at the South Pole. "No. Do you get a lot of blizzards in the Fire Nation?"
He didn't seem to notice the sarcastic edge to her voice. "Well, you'll see a lot more thunderst—"
An even louder crack of thunder interrupted him, and Katara froze her bending water into a solid lump and let it drop to the ground before she dodged toward the porthole. Outside, the sky was dark and the sea rough. The waves were nothing extraordinary to her. They got plenty of storms, plenty of wind at the South Pole too—if not worse, with the frozen winds whipping up mists that turned to thick crusts of ice on every surface. But even the worst of them never blackened the sky like this. Before her eyes, the sky seemed to split as a jagged streak of light cut through the clouds. It looked close, and almost as soon as the light faded, another crushing boom rattled through the ship.
Taro gave a low whistle. "That one sounded close." He stood up and stepped closer to the bars to squint out the porthole. He frowned when the lightning flashed more rapidly, and the rumbling carried on longer and louder.
"What?" Katara demanded. "Is this bad?"
There was a brief pause, then Taro gave a very obviously forced smile. "No, not necessarily." He let his expression settle back into something more stern, but his voice lightened a bit. "But I wouldn't be surprised if the general was too busy for breakfast today."
"I told you that we ought to turn back," Jee said, voice dull.
He had. Repeatedly. And loudly. But in Zuko's defense, the clouds hadn't looked so bad an hour ago. And even now, they looked—well, not good, but not as bad as they probably could be. If he squinted, he could almost make out the place where the sky grew lighter again on the other end of the storm too. Maybe. The ship was beginning to toss on the choppy water a bit, and that made it harder to tell for certain, but the far side of the storm really didn't look that far off.
He clenched his jaw. They had to keep going anyway. Uncle had finally gotten word of Zhao's location last night, and from the sound of it, the commander had reached his new station at the Pohuai Stronghold. Directly on Zuko's path.
Part of him wondered how Zhao had managed to get so far ahead after Zuko's head start from Crescent Island. He thought he'd been making good enough time to stay ahead of Zhao, to have all the space he needed to capture the monk without interference. He should have been far beyond Zhao's reach by now.
But there had been a day wasted at Makapu, a night spent fighting off pirates, then two days with Jun and Nyla, and another at Haibin—maybe it wasn't so impossible that Zhao had gotten ahead of him. A measly day of a head start meant nothing when it was followed by four days of lost progress.
He kind of wanted to kick something. Pohuai had looked like a promising place to trap the airbender before Zhao wound up stationed there. And now Zuko had to sneak past Zhao again and hope that the waterbender would somehow prove strong enough a temptation to lure the monk out of Zhao's reach before he could find a place to try again.
"We can still outrun the storm," Zuko said and set his jaw.
Jee turned his way and glowered. "An hour ago, there was hardly a cloud in sight, and you think we can outrun it?"
He didn't think so. They had no other choice. They had to keep going.
Stony faced, he nodded.
Stepping a bit closer, Jee stared down his nose at Zuko. "This storm is only going to get worse." Thunder crashed outside as if to emphasize his point. "What are you planning to do when it does? This could be a typhoon, and it we go any farther, it'll be too late to turn back."
Zuko straightened, wishing that he could look down at Jee for once. "It's already too late to turn back," he snapped. "What do you suggest we do, Lieutenant? The storm is moving south. If we turn back, it's just going to follow us until we run out of fuel. If we keep going, we'll come out the other side sooner and miss the worst of it." He hoped they'd miss the worst of it. But they couldn't turn back, and there was no better way he could see to get out of the storm.
"All of this for the Avatar," Jee said, voice heavy with disgust. "Or is this about the waterbender? You still haven't told any of us what's so flaming important about that girl, and we've wasted days for her. In fact," he added, "we wouldn't be facing this storm at all if you hadn't stopped to buy clothes for her. Or if you'd been reasonable and let us dock and refuel. So what is it? What's so important about the girl that you're willing to put yourself and the whole crew at risk?"
Zuko's face heated. He wanted to yell at Jee for bringing up the clothes, but most of the crew knew by now. Instead, he clenched his fists and glared. "That's not your concern, Lieutenant."
"It is if I'm expected to go down with this ship over it. Why so much trouble over a waterbender?"
He couldn't say it. He couldn't tell Jee—or anyone, for that matter—that the Avatar was already in his grasp, already under Fire Nation control. No one would believe him. And if they did, the crew would fight to go home without the monk, and Zuko couldn't do that, and if word got out, Zhao would try to steal the girl or search even harder for the monk to keep Zuko from ever going home, and—
Zuko's stomach twisted, and his heart sat at the back of his throat. He couldn't let that happen. The girl's identity had to remain a secret. It was lucky that she seemed to agree that it was better no one knew the truth.
"This is about the Avatar," he managed. It wasn't a lie strictly speaking.
"Then why all the fuss over the girl?"
Zuko remembered the shock when the girl had first knocked him off his feet at the South Pole, the desperation to catch her, and the speck of hope that appeared when he finally succeeded. He remembered the horrible sinking feeling in his stomach when he saw her exhausted and starving, and the uneasy relief as he watched her sleep. He remembered the awkwardness of buying clothes for her, the discomfort of counting the seconds while she washed, knowing full well that she might use the water to attack, and the odd satisfaction of seeing her in the too-big Earth Kingdom tunic, combing the knots out of her hair. Much as she frustrated him, much as she annoyed him with her constant arguing, much as she was his enemy, Zuko needed her. And he felt better knowing that she was safe.
Of course, he could never say any of that to Jee. Or even to Uncle. He still had some sense of self-preservation left.
"The girl is a friend of the Avatar," he answered stiffly. "I'm going to use her to capture him."
"Then why didn't you offer her as a trade for the Avatar rather than wasting time shopping for her?"
Because he couldn't do that. He couldn't trade for the girl's freedom when she was every bit as important as the monk. Zuko felt the blood rise to his face.
"That bounty hunter knew what she was going on about, didn't she?" Jee's eyes bored into Zuko's face. "Your girlfriend. Why else would you put in so much trouble for her?"
"Are you insane, Lieutenant? Of course n—"
Lightning struck behind them followed by a crack of thunder so loud that Zuko jumped visibly. He spun to look out the windows on the other end of the control tower. Halfway up one of the smokestacks, a patch of steel looked blacker than usual.
Jee swore aloud. "Smokestack's been hit." He glared down at Zuko again. "We need to turn back now, Prince Zuko."
The storm clouds had closed in behind them now, heavy and dark in every direction. Zuko couldn't even tell which way they'd come anymore. But they were moving against the storm. If they turned back, they would never be able to move fast enough to escape it, much less outrun it.
He shook his head. "I've already told you, Lieutenant, we are not turning back." Hands clenched into fists at his sides, Zuko started down toward the deck. "Keep us on course as well as you can," he barked back over his shoulder. "I'm going to check the rest of the ship."
Being left behind was boring. Really boring.
Aang had already looked for berries—the bushes and trees were all picked bare. And nuts—there were a few of those, but only the gross, bitter kind that the monks used to boil for a headache remedy. He'd tried to get Momo to play a game with him, but Momo wasn't interested, and Appa was too busy grazing the clearing bare to come looking for belly rubs.
Aang flopped onto his back and launched a few leaves up into the air with his bending. He wasn't going to run off this time. He'd promised Sokka that he wouldn't, and he had to keep his word. But it was entirely possible that he'd die of boredom while he was waiting for Sokka to come back.
He buffeted the leaves upward with another small puff of air. What would the others do if they were bored? Sokka would probably go hunting. Or fishing. Or he'd hang around camp to annoy Katara while he tried to build traps out of sticks and sharpened all his weapons. Aang definitely didn't want to do any of that. And Katara had usually kept herself busy with lots and lots of chores and waterbending practice. Doing chores sounded even more boring that just lying here, but waterbending practice—well, it wouldn't be very much fun by himself, but it sounded better than the rest of his ideas.
As he started to sit up, a big, fat splotch of wet hit him in the middle the forehead, and Aang wiped it away with the back of his hand. Only water, luckily. But then another drop landed on his head, then one on his arm, then another and another, until the few drops of rain turned into a downpour.
Aang scuttled backward into Sokka's tent and shook the moisture out of his clothes. On second thought, maybe even waterbending practice wouldn't be fun right now. He sat with a thump beside Sokka's sleeping bag.
Well, at least he could stay out of the rain here. Hopefully Sokka was doing the same down in the village. He'd probably found work in a shop or something, and—
No, that didn't really sound like something Sokka would do. Sokka really liked to do 'manly' stuff, whatever that meant. Usually outside stuff. Like gathering firewood, or carrying things, or—fishing.
This was a fishing village.
Sokka was definitely working for a fisherman.
Lightning cracked across the sky and a peal of thunder followed just a second later. Uh-oh. That was a storm. Judging by how quickly it had come up, it might be a bad one too.
Aang jumped to his feet. Promise or no promise, he had to make sure Sokka was okay. Besides, he'd only promised to stay out of sight. In this weather, no one would be outside to see Aang anyway.
He sprinted across to Appa, one arm bent over his head to deflect some for the rain.
"Come on, buddy." He leapt up onto Appa's neck. "We have to go save Sokka!"
Katara tried to tell herself that this was just like ice dodging. In some ways, it felt similar. The sea rolled under her feet, occasionally hitting the hull with a jarring slap, and she could feel the ship changing direction to meet the waves every few seconds.
The only difference was that she was below deck, and she couldn't see the waves coming before they hit. And that she couldn't use her bending to soften the blows. And that Zuko's ship was probably ten times the size of Bato's, which meant the waves were ten times bigger too. And that the flashes of lightning and thunder kept catching her off guard, and she was locked in a cell, and she couldn't really trust anyone on the ship, and—
Okay, so nothing about this was anything like ice dodging, except for the fact that she was on a boat on the ocean and there was a very real danger of sinking.
In the corridor, Taro had given up his chair, which kept trying to tip him out on one side or the other, in favor of sitting outside the cell, holding one of the bars loosely in his hand.
"Make sure you're holding on to something," Taro warned her over the thunder.
"Why? Is the storm going to get worse than this?"
"How am I supposed to know? Seems pretty bad already." Taro glanced up at her and shrugged. "But suit yourself. If you want to fall off your bunk the next time we hit a wave, that's your decision."
Katara took his point and gripped the edge of the bunk. She was at least a little grateful for one thing—the thin mat did soften the worst of the jolts while Taro bounced against the steel floor unprotected. She felt just a tiny bit bad for him. By the time this was over, he was going to have a very sore tailbone.
"Do you get a lot of storms like this?" she yelled over the rumbling.
Taro shrugged again. "Lots of storms. Hard to say if they're anything like this when I can't see this one." The ship lurched again, and he swore. "You? Ever been on a ship during a storm?"
Katara made a face and shook her head. "We're smart enough to stay home during storms at the South Pole."
The lights in the corridor flickered, and Katara thought she noticed an odd, pale grayish cast to Taro's face.
"Are you seasick?" she asked incredulously.
"Aren't you?"
Not really. She didn't feel great about being stuck on a Fire Nation ship in the middle of a storm, but it wasn't nausea so much as it was a general sense of dread at the thought of sinking with a bunch of firebenders.
She pulled her feet up onto the bunk. "Don't you dare throw up. I don't want to have to smell that."
Taro rolled his eyes and gave her a funny little salute. "Noted, Miss Fussy. I'll be sure to let my stomach know."
"Prince Zuko! Lightning hit the control tower!"
"You idiot, that was the smokestack. But Prince Zuko, we need to—"
"The engines are starting to overheat."
"Prince Zuko, there's a—"
"An eel squid just washed up on the stern, and we can't get rid of it."
"Prince Zuko—"
"Either the pipes are leaking or we're taking on water in the galley."
"There's a leak by the crew's quarters, and—"
"I saw a thing in the water!"
"What kind of a thing?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be calling it a thing, would I?"
"Prince Zuko—"
"We need to turn back before we sink!"
Zuko's head was beginning to pound from all the confused shouting, all the grown men crushing in on him and doing their best to shout over one another. What did they expect him to do? He couldn't solve all twenty problems at the same time. He wasn't even sure he could deal with them one at a time.
"Would you all shut up?" he yelled. "I can't deal with all of you at once."
The shouts tapered off to unpleasant mutters, and Zuko took a breath. At least he could hear his own thoughts now. He didn't care if the crew thought he was rude. They already thought that, and it had never done him any harm before.
He jabbed a finger at the men who thought the ship was leaking. "You two. Take some of the others and go find out if we're taking on water. If so, start bailing and plug up the holes until we can make repairs."
"We've got a waterbender on board. Can't she do the bailing?"
Zuko barely stopped to consider it before he shook his head. "She's a prisoner. She's not leaving her cell." Not when she might use the opportunity to escape or go into the Avatar State and send the ship down to the bottom of the ocean. The small chance that she could help save the ship wasn't worth the risk of losing her or having her wreak vengeance against him and his whole crew.
That was met with even more grumbling, but Zuko did his best to ignore it.
"You. Go down to the engine room and keep them from overheating. Take extra men if you need them." He cast a dark glare around the cluster of remaining crewmen. "And the rest of you," he bellowed, "Get back to your stations and stop acting like you've never seen a storm before!"
He was met by a series of scowls and glares, but a few of the crewmen meandered off, and Zuko turned away. He couldn't waste time, not when he still had to check the rest of the ship to make sure they weren't taking on more water than the crew thought.
"What about the eel squid?" someone yelled after him.
"I don't care! Walk around it if you have to."
He made it two whole steps without interruption this time before the alarms began blaring, too loud and too close to his head.
"Ah!" He clapped his hands over his ears and spun back around. "What is it now?"
The men who still lingered glanced stupidly back and forth at one another, then turned on the spot, searching aimlessly.
Zuko wanted to scream. How incompetent could they all possibly be? They should know where an alarm was coming from. Or at least have a rough idea where to look.
But then one of them pointed up. "There! The observation deck!"
Zuko turned to look, not expecting to find anything. But after he squinted and blinked through the wind and the rain pelting down almost sideways, he could make out a dark shape dangling precariously from the bottom edge of the railing. One of the crewmen. And he was about to fall.
Zuko took off at a run, heart pounding and mind racing. There were still a hundred things he needed to do to make sure that the ship survived the storm, leaks to look for, obstacles to avoid, waves to dodge, but they all dropped away for a minute. One thing at a time. And keeping the crew alive would always come first.
Taro's attempts at distracting Katara from the storm were beginning to grate on her nerves. She was scared, at least a little bit, but inane questions didn't help. Besides, she wasn't seasick, and every time the ship rolled over another wave, Taro's face turned a different shade of greenish gray. She didn't need to be reminded that she was never more than a few minutes away from watching a firebender lose his breakfast.
She didn't have to deal with any firebender vomit, thankfully. The ship kept rolling, tossing over waves that occasionally splashed directly against the porthole, and listing from one side to the other, but somehow always righting itself. Maybe they were lucky. Or maybe someone on the ship really knew what they were doing. But they passed over one towering wave after another after another, Katara gripping the edge of the bunk so hard that the edges of the steel cut into her fingers, and somehow the slate-gray sky outside the porthole always came back into view.
Hours passed, and the sky darkened, but the ship remained upright and afloat. And it may have been wishful thinking, but Katara felt like the waves were getting smaller and the thunder less frequent. Maybe they were lucky. Maybe the worst of the storm had passed, and they were going to keep sailing long after the wind, the rain, and the thunder all passed.
She hoped so. She wouldn't mind watching Zuko's ship sink, but she wanted to be on the outside before that happened. And although she was fairly certain that some of her bending water was still left in the sink, she couldn't break herself out quickly enough to escape a sinking ship. Not if she couldn't find a moment alone to work on the door.
Sure enough, the waves slowly lessened until Katara could relax her grip on the side of the bunk, and just when she started to hope that Taro might leave—at least long enough for her to check on her frozen bending water, if not for her to start cutting the door open—the door at the top of the stairs opened and a whole group of firebenders tramped their way down, all talking over one another.
Perfect. Was it really too much to ask for five minutes to herself so she could try to break out?
"Out of the way, Taro," a sharp, nasal voice barked. "And stay out of the chair too. We'll be needing that."
Taro stood and backed a few steps out of the way as the other firebenders made their way into view.
Katara felt a bit like she shouldn't be watching. She didn't owe them any privacy. She could gape all she wanted and there was nothing any of them could do about it, but she shouldn't be curious about what they were up to either. Still, she was. Just a little. Even if it was just to figure out why they'd come here of all places.
So she watched, only half pretending to look away, as Zuko and a wiry old man deposited a much larger, heavier sailor into the chair. His face looked pinched, and he held his arm in an awkward, stiff position across his chest.
"Can't you deal with this in the sickbay?" Taro asked.
Katara was wondering the same thing. Whatever was wrong with the big sailor's arm—broken bones, sprained or dislocated joints—it looked painful, and the corridor outside the cell was hardly suited for medical purposes.
"Could if it wasn't flooded," the wiry old man answered, frowning as he poked and prodded at the other sailor's shoulder. "This is the closest place that's still dry."
Taro made a small gagging noise as the sailor's shoulder shifted unnaturally. The sailor groaned, and even Zuko looked a little sick, but the old man—the ship's medic, probably—shot a disgusted glance at Taro.
"Look away if you can't stomach it, you great sea slug."
Zuko obeyed, and Katara almost laughed. Squeamishness from the high and mighty prince of the Fire Nation was a surprise all on its own, but seeing him respond to indirectly being called a sea slug was an absolute delight.
"What do you need from the sickbay?" Zuko asked the medic, staring off somewhere to the side. "I'll go get it."
Smooth. Very smooth. Katara rolled her eyes and settled farther back on the bunk.
By the time she looked back, Zuko was gone, and the medic was moving the sailor's arm around in all sorts of unnatural directions. Okay, that was a little gross. Or a lot gross.
"No use in dragging this out." The medic straightened the sailor's arm. "Ready and—"
Katara looked away, but she heard the horrific crunch when the man's shoulder slid back into place, and the explosive string of shouts and curses that followed. Maybe she couldn't make fun of Zuko's squeamishness after all. The noise made her stomach turn.
"Oh, pull yourself together, Souta."
Souta groaned again. "Remind me to thank Prince Zuko for this," he said, voice thick with sarcasm.
"You'd rather be dead? Sounds to me like that could have been arranged."
Katara's eyes bulged. What? Had Zuko done this? Had Zuko almost killed a man and chosen to dislocate his shoulder instead? Was this some sort of sick punishment? Zuko was a firebender, after all. She knew the kinds of things they were capable of.
But Zuko—part of her couldn't quite believe that he was really that bad. For her sanity, if nothing else. She had to deal with Zuko until she managed to escape. If she really believed that he was that bad, she would lose her nerve. She might become too afraid of him to attempt escape. That could happen. She'd seen that happen to the whole population of the Haishui rig. But she didn't believe it, not really. She believed that there were still lines that Zuko wouldn't cross.
Maybe she was just naïve. Maybe she'd let her guard down too much. She shouldn't put trust in a firebender's capacity for restraint.
And yet she'd yelled at him and insulted him, and he hadn't harmed her. She'd told him that his hair looked stupid, and Zuko had bought new clothes for her. She'd argued with him, and he'd turned on the water to let her bathe, even though she could have turned that water against him. Even though she was planning to turn it against the bars holding her prisoner. If that wasn't proof that Zuko could show restraint, then what was?
"He didn't have to be in such a hurry," Souta griped. "I'd have lasted a bit longer."
"That's not the way I hear it."
"Well then Jee should have gone ahead. At least he's not so damned impatient."
The impatience part did sound like Zuko, but the rest of it—Katara couldn't fathom what on earth they could be talking about. "What happened?" she blurted before she could stop herself.
"Prince Zuko broke my arm," the sailor answered.
"Souta fell off the observation deck and dislocated his arm when Prince Zuko caught him." the medic said over the other man's grumblings. "And the same would've happened if it was Jee instead, so stop with the whining, Souta."
Katara gave a small nod, a wave of something like satisfaction washing over her. Zuko hadn't tried to kill anyone. She knew it. She knew he wasn't that bad.
Wait. When had she become so certain about that? She shouldn't be. Hoping was one thing. Wishing for Zuko to hold onto the restraint that he'd shown so far was fine, but accepting it as fact was quite another.
Just wishful thinking, she told herself. She couldn't actually believe that Zuko was better than his countrymen. He hadn't earned that trust.
But she still couldn't shake off the odd, unsettling feeling of relief, of rightness that came with hearing that Zuko hadn't injured the other man intentionally. Or the equally compelling sense that she should have been more surprised by Zuko's one good deed.
She only half listened to the conversation that followed, to the sniping back and forth between the medic and Souta, to Taro's sarcastic interjections. None of the particulars mattered to her. In fact, she didn't want to know any more of the specifics. She was having enough trouble sorting out her thoughts without knowing exactly how Zuko had saved the sailor's life. The last thing she needed was enough detail to imagine it happening.
It was just because these people were Zuko's crew, she reminded herself. He probably had some warped sense of loyalty for his own people and acted on that and a practical need to keep his crew alive and functioning. Pragmatism hardly seemed like Zuko's strongest suit, but it made more sense than anything else. He couldn't sail without a crew. He couldn't keep Katara imprisoned without a crew. Which meant that he couldn't let his crew fall to their deaths in the middle of a storm.
Probably. It would do to keep herself from dwelling on it for now, at least.
When Zuko finally reappeared, he handed a stack of bandages and medicine jars off to the medic, and Katara watched as the medic accepted it all without comment. That seemed a little weird. No acknowledgement for their own prince? Weren't they supposed to be grateful that he'd brought the supplies down, to say nothing of the fact that he'd saved a man's life?
Not that she wanted to see anyone praising Zuko. But it would make more sense if they at least tried a little. More sense than silence, anyway.
Zuko turned her direction, and the curiosity vanished of its own accord.
Zuko had taken her away from her friends, she reminded herself. He'd used that big mole creature to win an unfair fight, left Sokka lying paralyzed in the middle of the path, and hauled Katara away. He'd locked her up and taken two whole days to notice that she was neither eating nor drinking. And he'd stolen her mother's necklace and worn it around his wrist like some kind of trophy. Somehow. She still didn't know how he'd gotten his hands on it, and a part of her desperately wanted to know.
Of course, the rest of her just wanted it back. She let her eyes flick down toward his wrists, then scowled and met his eyes again when she found them both bare.
For a long, uncomfortable minute, they both glared at one another. If Zuko thought he could intimidate her, he was sorely mistaken.
"You're okay." His tone was too flat to be a question, too sharp to be a statement. It sounded almost like an order. Was he ordering her to be okay?
She was okay. She was perfectly fine, but she didn't owe Zuko any reassurance.
She scowled at him.
That, apparently, was enough answer for Zuko. With a single, stiff nod, he started to turn away.
Oh, no. That wasn't an answer, and Zuko didn't get to take it as one. Katara shot up off of the bunk and darted to the door before he could make it out of sight.
"Hey, Zuko," she shouted through the bars.
He paused, turning his head just far enough to peer at her out of his scarred eye. That was unfair. She couldn't read his expression on that side.
"I'd be a lot better if I wasn't hungry," she said. "I haven't had anything to eat all day."
And it had to be late in the evening by now, if not after nightfall.
Zuko rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Neither has anyone else. You'll eat when the rest of us do, after we get the galley running again." Before she could speak again, he turned and stalked out of sight.
Author's Note:
I'M ALIVE!
I don't know why I'm saying that. My posting schedule hasn't changed, but I feel like I'm some kind of swamp goblin emerging from a cave with a bundle of chapter drafts stuffed under my arm. And I haven't written an author's note in well over a month now, so... yeah. The swamp goblin is back with new words. Many of them. I didn't think I was going to finish NaNo, but I definitely did, and I have drafts ready for chapters through the end of February, it's just a matter of getting everything edited on time, and I'M SO EXCITED to post everything!
Anyway. What even is the canon order of events? I decided that I wanted to do something with The Storm (and the aftermath of that episode), but it fell much, much earlier in the show's timeline, and why would I not have it happen when Katara was on the ship with Zuko since I knew that was going to happen anyway? And this tweak probably wreaks havoc with the geography of the ATLA world too, but I decided I didn't care about that. Katara being there to learn about some of the first truly selfless things Zuko does in the show was much more important to me.
The next Ice & Smoke update will be in two more weeks, but I'm going to be posting a Zutara oneshot next week, so come back for that if you're interested, and in the meantime, reviews are always appreciated!
