Water
Holding the Balance
By now, Zuko had almost forgotten the concept of normalcy. He could hardly remember how it felt to have a routine, to have anything resembling consistency from one day to the next. The waterbender had singlehandedly disrupted everything around her, and the turmoil outside her reach felt like mere splinters by comparison.
Jee grumbled when Zuko ordered them to dock at Pohuai for repairs, then grumbled even louder when Zhao's men turned them away at the mouth of the harbor. To Zuko, though, it came as a relief. One less decision to rest on his shoulders. One less thing that the men could blame him for. He'd tried to repair and refuel the ship at Pohuai. He couldn't help that they'd been turned away. He couldn't force Zhao to change his mind. And now there was only one choice left, only one place they could still reach with their dwindling supplies.
Ordinarily, he might have felt desperate. Trapped. But now, the single option left to him felt more like stability. He didn't have to decide anything. With no other options left, he could finally stop worrying about their destination and focus on keeping himself from drowning in the chaos that surrounded the waterbender.
Even the agonizing slowness of their progress didn't bother him as much as it should. There was a pattern to this, at least. From the control tower, he could watch the shore creep past, and the rise and fall of the tides. And as the days dragged on, he managed to carve out the start of a routine.
Every night, he sat on the observation deck to keep an extra watch out for the airbender and his bison. Every morning, he ignored Uncle's invitations and ate breakfast alone, then spent an hour or two training or looking over his maps. Then at midday, while the sun did its best to fill him with energy and keep him from closing his eyes, Zuko slept. And every evening, after he woke and Uncle finished his dinner with the waterbender, Zuko made a short visit to her cell before he started all over again.
It was easier this way. Their meetings, though brief, were always stiff and silent. The waterbender wore the necklace again, and her hand raised frequently to her throat, feeling the edges of the pendant, as though she expected it to disappear. Zuko said nothing about the necklace—nothing at all when he could avoid it. Silence was easier. Keeping these meetings as short as possible was easier.
She seemed to agree, and there were some days when neither of them spoke, when the waterbender just looked up at him from the edge of her bunk, brow furrowed, until he nodded and turned away again.
Zuko tried not to wonder about what was behind that expression, whether it was confusion or anger or something else entirely. He didn't want to know what was going through her head. The less he knew, the less he had to think about her, about the monk, about anything outside of his fragile new routine.
He needed all his focus for other things.
"Breathing, Prince Zuko. You must be more attentive to your breathing if you wish to master this set."
With a grunt of annoyance, Zuko dropped back into his stance and tried the form over again. He was breathing. If he breathed much more, he was going to hyperventilate and pass out.
Uncle made a small, displeased noise and nudged Zuko's shoulder with a fingertip.
It was almost enough to topple him, and Zuko jerked himself upright, back into the flow of the form. He'd wanted this, he reminded himself. He'd been asking for more advanced training for ages, and at least Uncle was finally giving him a chance. The endless prodding and repeated suggestions were a bit much for his liking, but Zuko could handle it. At least criticism gave him something concrete to work with.
"Your stance is sloppy. Are you focused, Prince Zuko?"
Zuko reached the end of the sequence and released a rush of flames out the end of his fists. "Of course I am."
Uncle shook his head. "I don't believe you are. You must keep your mind clear and your emotions unclouded or you will have trouble regulating your breath and following the motions properly." He rounded the training space to look Zuko in the eye. "Your mind seems otherwise occupied."
Of course it was. He was still banished, still struggling to find his path home. How was he supposed to clear his mind when one of the Avatars was already locked away below deck, when her words still echoed in his mind from time to time? How was he supposed to clear his mind when the other Avatar was still out there somewhere? How could he forget that he'd had the airbender in his hands only to watch the child slip through his fingers?
How could he stop thinking about how the prospect of harming the Avatar—either Avatar—still paralyzed him?
"I'm trying, Uncle."
"You must try harder if you wish to master this set. Fire comes from the breath, and—"
"And I'm not breathing right. You keep saying that. How is it possible to breathe wrong, though?"
Uncle sighed. "Prince Zuko, this is why we must meditate every day. Lack of concentration can be dangerous, and you must train yourself to maintain it." He studied Zuko. "Are you certain that you wish to continue today? If you are distracted, this will prove a frustrating process."
When would he not be distracted? When he finally made it home? After? It would be too late by then. He needed more advanced firebending now, when he was far from home and still searching for the airbender. He couldn't go back home with his bending still in such a pitiful state, even if it was easier to train there.
And training itself was a welcome distraction from everything else. Uncle couldn't ask him to give that up. Even if it was frustrating. Even if Uncle kept finding fault with his stance and his breathing and his motions. All of that still felt better than staying lost in his own thoughts.
"I'm sure, Uncle. Just tell me what I'm doing wrong."
Uncle raised a bushy eyebrow. "I have already told you. Your breathing and your stance are too unfocused. You must exercise control by remaining completely aware of your breath and your body at all times."
That sounded hard. Really hard.
"Can't I just try sparring with Lieutenant Jee? I'm sure it'll make more sense when I'm actually fighting someone."
"No." Uncle folded his arms and took a step back. "From the beginning once more."
Katara was beginning to find her rhythm. She hadn't realized it before, but the ship did have something resembling a routine. And as the routine settled back in, she began to learn the patterns of comings and goings, to anticipate when her moments of solitude would begin and end.
It was easier for her. Easier to work on the door when she knew when and for how long she'd be left alone, easier to keep from being caught, and easier to deal with the guards too. Even the grumpiest among them seemed less on edge as the ship settled back into its pattern.
Closing her eyes, she felt all the condensation on the hull and drew it toward herself. She added drops to her little ball of ice in the sink whenever she could, but the rest of her water had to be saved for training. The guards had to see her practicing so she would have a better chance of throwing off suspicion if they ever caught her at work on the door.
For a long moment, she stayed in her ready stance, perfectly still, feeling every droplet of water in her command, then launched into a quick flurry of movement.
Over her time in the cell, with so little water to work with, her forms had grown more focused, more forceful. Thin sheets of liquid formed approximations of the waves and disks and ropes of water, shattering into mists when they made contact with the walls or the floor, and responding to the slightest motion when Katara pulled them back together.
She was getting better at that. Keeping her water from dissipating was still a struggle—the ship was warm, and the water evaporated easily, but being isolated from larger supplies of it for so long made her more aware of every drop, heightened her control over every one so she never lost the smallest particle until it evaporated.
With a bulge of water smaller than her fist, Katara worked her way through all the forms she knew, then moved on to the ones she was still trying to master from memory. Much as she hated to admit it, she felt like a better bender for all the time she'd had to work with so little of her element. She was more aware of the water, more in control of it, and her muscles were becoming accustomed to the strain of working for hours on end. If she didn't know better, she'd think that she was even getting better at slowing down the evaporation so that she could practice longer.
But she reached the inevitable end when her water shrank so far that she could no longer form the proper shapes, and when Daiki wasn't looking, she added the last remaining drops to her ball of ice in the sink. That, more than anything else, was holding her back. Her newest forms weren't hard—no harder than anything else she'd taught herself, at least, but by the time she reached them, there was so little water left that she couldn't go on. She wasn't going to waste her already small supply on training when she needed it to bring down the door.
In the corridor, Daiki stretched his arms over his head and yawned.
"Guess that's it, then? No more practice for today."
Katara frowned. It shouldn't have to be. She could slow the water's evaporation already. She did that every day. Why couldn't she go a step further? Why couldn't she stop it from happening? She was a waterbender, after all. She could bend mists, she could dissipate water into almost nothing, and she could pull it all back under her control when she was done. She ought to be able to keep it from disappearing.
No, that still wasn't enough. Holding all her water in place, keeping it from ever evaporating, that would take constant focus. Even if she could manage it for a short time, she'd never be able to keep it up for very long.
But if she went yet another step further—if she could find a way to claim her water back from the air, then maybe the rest of it would be unnecessary. Maybe she could have all the water she ever needed at a moment's notice.
Pressing her lips into a thin line, she renewed her stance and stared determinedly ahead. "We'll see about that."
Brow creased in concentration, she moved her arms in broad, slow circles, the same way she always called her bending water back after it dispersed. It worked when the water was liquid. If anything could pull the water back out of the air, this had to be a good place to start.
"How's this sound? We wait until night and have Appa swim up alongside Zuko's ship. He's not moving very fast, so Appa won't have any trouble keeping up. And if we can get up close enough without being spotted, they won't be able to see us. Then—" Sokka dragged his boomerang through the soft dirt, cutting a harsh line through the middle of his haphazard drawing of the ship, "—you take your glider around to all the windows on the lower half of the ship and peek inside. Katara's bound to be below deck, so we'd have a pretty good chance of figuring out where she is."
If Zuko hadn't locked her away in the middle of the ship, anyway. Sokka wouldn't put it past him to hide Katara somewhere she couldn't see daylight.
Across from him, Aang gave a slow nod. "I think that could work."
"But then how do we get Katara out once we find her? Do you think the windows are easy to break?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Because if they are, we can take a rock or something, break Katara's window and just haul her out. Right?"
"Sure."
Sokka ran a hand down the side of his face. "Come on,Aang. Give me a little more to work with."
Aang threw up his hands. "I don't know what else you want me to say! You're supposed to be the plan guy."
"Yeah, well it's not my fault that I can't come up with much. My brain is still fuzzy."
Leaning forward, Aang rested his elbows on his knees, and Momo took that as an invitation to hop onto his back. "Then maybe you should sleep. You were really sick for a while. I bet you'll be able to think better after another night of rest."
With a scoff, Sokka poked at the campfire. "I'm pretty sure being sick wasn't what made my brain all fuzzy. It had to be all the frogs you stuffed into my mouth."
"Those were to help you feel better!" Aang protested.
"Do you think you'd feel better if someone kept shoving wiggly, slimy frogs in your mouth?"
"They did help you, Sokka. The lady at the herbalist institute knew what she was talking about."
"Then why is it still so hard to think?"
Aang reached around to scoop Momo off of his back. "Probably because you were delirious for a couple of days."
"I was not."
"Yeah, you were. When I told you that I was going to go find help, you said some really weird stuff."
"Like what?"
"First, you called me Appa. Then right before I left, you said you loved me."
Sokka let out a squawk of protest. He'd done no such thing. He would definitely remember saying something like that. It was silly to think otherwise.
Of course there were bits of the past few days that were still fuzzy. That didn't mean anything, though. If Sokka had been sick, he'd probably slept a lot. That was normal. Perfectly normal.
"And then," Aang continued, "you told me not to listen to the armadillo men because they were liars."
At that, Sokka cocked his head to the side. "What in the world is an armadillo man? And why are they liars?"
Aang gave a huge shrug. "Don't ask me. Ask fever Sokka."
Sokka stared at Aang for a minute, then shook his head. He was still pretty sure that Aang was making things up, but there were more important things to worry about. "Whatever. What are we going to do about Zuko's ship? What if the window is too small for Katara to fit through? And if we can't break the windows, what do we do then? Could we find a saw or something and cut through the hull?"
Aang frowned, scratching Momo behind the ears. "That might be too noisy. And it would probably take a long time too."
"Right. Okay, so what can you do with your bending? Can you cut things with air? What about water? Could you cut through the hull with your bending?"
"Probably not air. Water—I think water might be able to cut things."
Sokka jumped up and swooped his boomerang triumphantly through the air. "Perfect! Then that's it! We'll take a big rock with us to break the window, and if it's not big enough, you can cut through the hull with your waterbending and let her out!"
"Yeah." Aang sounded like he was trying to be enthusiastic, but he didn't smile. He scuffed the ground with his heel. "Um—That sounds great, Sokka."
"What's the problem?"
"I don't know if my waterbending is good enough to cut anything. Especially metal. I haven't practiced very much, and—"
Sokka deflated and thumped back onto his rocky seat. Ouch. That was going to hurt for a while. "Why haven't you practiced much, Aang? You said I was sick for three days. Wasn't that enough time to practice?"
"Yeah, maybe, but—"
"But what?"
Aang rubbed the back of his neck, staring guiltily off into the distance. "Um—but it didn't seem like very much fun without Katara?"
He was hiding something, Sokka could tell that much. He decided that he didn't care. There were more important things to worry about than whatever weird secret Aang was hiding.
Standing as tall as he could, Sokka put on his most authoritative voice. "That's it, young man. You're going to start waterbending practice whether it's fun or not." He puffed out his chest. "And no funny business, got it? I don't want my feet frozen to the ground or anything like that."
Aang raised both eyebrows. "Are you trying to sound like King Bumi?"
Sokka picked up a twig and tossed it at Aang. "Shut up. Go do your bending stuff."
On the first day, she spent a few agonizingly slow hours practicing slight variations of the same movement over and over. She moved her hands at different speeds, in different shapes, alternating between broader and smaller circles, hoping that something would make a difference. Nothing did. And when the general brought another meal down to the cell, Katara plopped down by the bars, so frustrated that she nearly forgot to save a few drops of tea to replenish her dwindling water supply.
This had to work. There had to be a way to get her water back.
The second day was much the same. After all the condensation evaporated away, she resumed her practice again. The circles were almost hypnotic. Maddening too. The longer she went on, the harder she focused, the more she could sense the water hanging just out of reach.
Then, when evening began to fall on the third day and the sky outside the porthole began to darken, she felt something snap into place. Her arms followed the same smooth, circular path she'd tried hundreds of times before, but this time, the vapor responded. It pulled inward, cooling, condensing, until a droplet no bigger than a grain of rice hovered between her hands.
With a shriek, she jumped up in the air and pranced around in a small circle. She'd done it. She'd pulled water straight from the air, and for an elated second, she felt unstoppable.
At her shriek, there was a loud snort, a grunt, and a metallic thump.
Once she'd finished her celebratory prance, Katara turned toward the noise, and found Masao sitting on the floor, looking very grumpy, with the chair overturned beside him. She snorted. That was his own fault. He wouldn't have been startled out of his seat if he hadn't fallen asleep.
She looked down at her hard-earned water drop. It was small—much smaller than she'd hoped, but it was a start all the same. If she just kept practicing, she could find water at a moment's notice no matter where she was. No more need to save drops of drinking water or tea or broth or anything. If she kept this up, she could escape without rousing any suspicion at all.
"Is anything wrong, Miss Katara?"
Katara jerked and looked up to the door, where the general stood with a tea tray, brows drawn in bewilderment. Her face heated. She'd been so focused on her bending that she hadn't even noticed his approach.
She dissipated the droplet into mist and gave the general a sheepish smile. "No. Sorry, I just figured out something new with my bending."
"I see." The general settled onto the floor, pushing the tray up against the bars like usual while Masao pulled himself to his feet, grumbling, and stalked off toward the stairs. "May I ask what it was?"
Katara considered it for a second. It couldn't possibly look impressive when she pulled a single drop of water out of the air. Most people wouldn't think anything of it. But the general knew how badly she wanted to escape, and it probably wasn't wise to give away any details of how she was planning to accomplish it.
She shook her head. "I don't really want to say. It's nothing important. Just a way for me to keep practicing a little longer."
The general tilted his head just a bit, but then nodded. "I understand. You seem very dedicated to your training."
She nodded and sat down across from him. "I have to be."
A chuckle. "You sound like my—"
"Don't say it."
"Right." But the old man's eyes twinkled anyway.
She scowled, reaching through the bars to retrieve her own empty cup and bowl. The comparisons between her and Zuko were somehow even more maddening now that they barely spoke. It had been days since either of them had said more than five words to the other, and she could picture the general's smug look if he knew how stubbornly she and Zuko were avoiding conversation.
"What, is Zuko doing a lot of training right now?" she asked.
"A fair amount, yes."
Great. Not that it really mattered. She wasn't going to fight him any time soon. She'd already decided that much. When the time came for her escape, she was going to break out of the cell unseen and be long gone before Zuko ever noticed her absence. Still, she didn't savor the idea of him getting any better.
"May I ask where you learn your new bending forms?" the general said.
It couldn't hurt anything to admit to that. "Mostly from scrolls. I had two of them and I memorized the illustrations when I was still with my friends." She shot a look at the general through narrowed eyes. "But the one I figured out today was something I came up with on my own after thinking about all the times my brother used to lecture me about science."
"Your brother is fond of science?"
"Too fond of it sometimes," she said, and filled up her own cup and bowl at the general's gesture. "He can be a real pain about it once you get him started."
The general's mouth quirked up into a small smile. "It is good to see that you are fond of him all the same."
Katara shrugged. "Of course. He's my brother."
"I'm sure you miss him."
She nodded. Being away still stung, but not quite as bad as it used to. She was getting closer to finding her way back to the boys every day. She'd managed to carve notches nearly the width of her thumb into each hinge by now, and there were just a few more inches to go. And once she broke the door loose, she'd never have to look back. Not even for her necklace.
Her hand came to rest on the pendant again. For hours after she finally got it back, she'd cried with relief. She didn't know why Zuko had decided to relent. Part of her itched to ask, but she always suppressed the urge. As long as the necklace was back where it belonged, it shouldn't matter.
The general noticed her hand on the necklace, but made no comment, taking a sip of his tea instead.
Katara watched him for a long moment. This was becoming a pattern. The general was always giving significant looks, always noticing things and then saying nothing.
"Why do you always do that?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"You keep giving me weird looks, but you never say anything. Why?"
The general took another sip. "Mmm. You really must try this blend."
Katara narrowed her eyes. "Why do I get the feeling that you do this to Zuko too?"
With a smile, the general set down his cup and picked up his bowl instead. "Perhaps because you are a wonderfully perceptive young lady." He went quiet for a minute, seemingly untroubled by the fiercest stare that Katara could muster. "There are some things—many things—that cannot be taught. They must be learned through experience."
"So you're trying to teach me something by forcing me to ask questions and never answering them?"
"I would not say that I force you to do anything."
"Maybe, but you don't leave me a lot of other choices."
"Hmm." The general paused again and looked thoughtfully upward. When he was through chewing, he said, "As I have said before, there are some conversations best left to the parties concerned. I have noticed your necklace, but I am uninvolved in the situation."
That came as less of a surprise than it should. She still couldn't imagine Zuko deciding to do anything nice—or approaching nice, but the general was maddeningly consistent on that point.
"You didn't tell Zuko to give my necklace back?"
The general shook his head. "I was aware that it was in his possession. I assumed that it must have belonged to you. That is all I know."
"Why did he give it back? Why would Zuko do any of this?"
The general smiled again. "I believe you can guess my answer already, Miss Katara."
Talk to Zuko. Ask him first.
"What if I don't want to listen?"
A chuckle. "Then I must stand by my earlier point. Prince Zuko is not so different from you."
"Prince Zuko?" a muffled voice called through the door.
He looked up from his map. Though he knew exactly where they were headed now, he kept poring over the map every chance he got. They'd be able to refuel soon. And if he was lucky, he might have a small chance of catching the airbender again.
If he could go through with it this time. And if their fuel was enough for the last stretch before they stopped. He tried not to think about either of those things too hard.
"What?" Zuko called back.
"This week's wash just finished."
With a sigh, he pushed himself up and thumped over to the door.
This time, they hadn't even tried to hide the waterbender's clothes between his. Her green tunic and leggings sat directly on top, folded small and neat enough that a narrow strip of red bordered them on every side.
Zuko narrowed his eyes. He could have protested. He could have reminded Souta that it wasn't Zuko's job to deliver things to the waterbender. It wasn't. It never had been.
Zuko didn't argue. With a glare and a single, stiff nod, he accepted the pile and shut the door on Souta. He was getting too accustomed to this. Too used to the crew treating him as a delivery boy whenever it came to the waterbender. He ought to start arguing about it again. He was a prince, he shouldn't have to wait on the girl like she was royalty.
But it was almost time for his daily visit anyway, he reasoned. And it had been more than a week since he let the waterbender bathe—she was probably due for another chance to wash. And although she hadn't caused any problems the first time, Zuko still wouldn't trust any of the others to handle that properly.
He dropped his own clothes off on his bunk and with the Earth Kingdom clothes tucked under his arm, Zuko made his way down to her cell.
It happened in silence now. At his arrival, the guard stood to leave, and the waterbender looked up at Zuko.
He raised the freshly washed green outfit by way of greeting. "Here." He shoved the tunic and leggings through the bars, not waiting for her response.
Her brows furrowed, and her lips pressed into a thin line, and Zuko shifted uncomfortably, still holding the clothes out. What was that look on her face? He'd grown accustomed to rage and hatred by now. This was something else. Confusion, maybe? It would make sense. She confused him all the time. Why wouldn't she be confused by Zuko too?
The girl stood and accepted the pile. No acknowledgement. No thanks. He was grateful for that. Silence was manageable.
"How long has it been?" she asked.
She could have been talking about anything. Since he captured her? Since he bought her the new clothes? Since the typhoon? Or—since the last time he'd brought clean clothes to her. Since he gave her necklace back.
She probably meant the last one. Zuko cleared his throat. "About—a little more than a week?" He shook his head and crossed the corridor. "I'm turning your water on again. Same as last time. One minute of water, five minutes to finish up."
"Zuko?" she interrupted. "I need to ask you something first."
He grudgingly met her eyes. He didn't want to deal with this. Her questions were too difficult. They lingered too long in his head and made it too hard for him to function. But he couldn't stop himself.
"What?" he said, his voice as gruff as possible.
"Why did you give my necklace back?"
Frowning, he stared off down the hall. "I don't know." He reached up and cranked the valve open, hoping that would be enough to put an end to the conversation. "One minute. I'll be counting."
From the corner of his eye, he saw the girl disappear behind the heavy curtain, and he rubbed his forehead. Why had he given it back? It could have been a bargaining chip, it could have lured her friends in, it could have been useful for a hundred other things. But he'd given it back. Was it guilt? It shouldn't be. He had nothing to feel guilty about. If anything, he should feel guilty for giving it back, for squandering his best chance at tricking the girl and her friends in order to get home. He should feel bad for doing such a disservice to his own nation.
But somehow, he didn't regret it. When he saw the pendant hanging at the girl's throat, it felt—right. It was hers, after all, and Zuko hadn't taken away the bit of her mother she still carried with her. Even if the girl's mother was waiting for her back home, even if Zuko's wasn't and never would be, he felt better knowing that he hadn't taken away that memory.
He'd just taken her from her brother and her friend.
Maybe he should take the Water Tribe idiot as a prisoner too. Maybe it would ease his conscience to reunite the three of them.
But what would happen then? If Zuko took all three of them back to the Fire Nation, Father would—
Zuko shook himself. No. No, he couldn't let the waterbender keep getting into his head like did what was necessary. He always had. Zuko had to accept that. He had to support it.
He kept staring down the hall, dipping in and out of thoughts that shook him to his core, until he realized that he'd never started counting the minute. He started and cranked the valve shut. It must have been more than a minute by now. It had to be.
Sure enough, the girl called from behind the curtain, "I think you and I have different ideas of what a minute is."
His face warmed, and he thanked the spirits that she was still behind the curtain and unable to see him. "Shut up. I was being generous."
"I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering if they ever taught you how to count in Fire Nation prince school or whatever."
He scowled into the cell, at the dark curtain that hid her from view. "Shut up. You have five minutes to finish, and I'll be counting for real this time."
He stalked off down the corridor and up the stairs, timing his footsteps with the counting in his head. If he couldn't focus on keeping time without drifting off into thought, he'd just have to pace until the time was up.
He passed by Uncle's cabin, footsteps landing heavy, then rounded at the end of the hall and marched straight back the way he'd come. Over and over again, past the two cabins and the stairs, back and forth.
Eventually, Uncle stuck his head out into the hallway. "Prince Zuko? Is everything all right?"
Zuko scowled and kept pacing. "Fine, Uncle." Two minutes and twenty seconds, two minutes and twenty-one—
"Are you certain?"
"Yes. Go away or I'll lose count again." Two minutes and twenty-five, two minutes and twenty-six—
Uncle raised his eyebrows and fixed his mouth into a narrow line but stepped out of the way and closed the door behind him.
Zuko sighed. The girl was making him look crazy. And the worst part was that he couldn't stop it. Not if he wanted to be certain that she was fed and clean and healthy. He had to keep her safe, which meant that he had to keep her content enough that she wouldn't try starving herself, which meant that he had to keep checking on her and doing things like this.
He was going soft. Or he had always been soft, and he was just getting worse at hiding it. The latter seemed more likely. There had been a time when Zuko thought he was getting over it, when he thought he was finally done caring about people, and then the girl had come along and proven his hopes wrong.
It served him well, Zuko tried to tell himself. Being soft wasn't acceptable in the Fire Nation, but out here, it meant that he'd be able to keep the waterbender safe. It meant that Zhao no longer suspected Zuko's involvement in the monk's escape. It meant that once he had the monk, Zuko would be able to keep him in one piece too.
If he could capture the monk. If he could take the Avatars both home without his stupid, overly soft conscience telling him that it was wrong.
He reached the end of five minutes almost without realizing it, and jerked back to reality a few seconds late. He leapt back down the stairs two at a time. Close enough, he hoped. Close enough that the girl wouldn't realize how distracted he'd been.
Stopping just out of sight, he called, "Are you finished?"
A short pause. "What if I'm not? What would you do?"
Zuko huffed and took a few steps back. "Hurry up, would you?"
There was movement from inside the cell, and the girl pressed her face out between the bars. Her hair hung in dense, dark clumps of curls around her face and her eyes pierced clear through him. And he could see a scrap of green fabric around one of her wrists. Good. She was dressed.
"I'm done," she said flatly. "I was just wondering if you'd give me more time."
Zuko scowled at her and stomped toward the cell while she pulled back and kept working the comb through her damp curls.
"You're really trying to make me look like an idiot, aren't you?"
The girl shrugged. "I think you're doing just fine on your own."
He started to argue. This, at least, was familiar. He knew how to fight with her. He knew how to argue, how to take her insults in stride, and he almost preferred that to whatever strange, confusing silence had hung between them for the past several days.
But the girl didn't give him a chance. Before he could speak, she passed her folded Water Tribe clothes out to him.
"I still want to know what's going to happen to me if you get me back to the Fire Nation."
"If?"
She frowned. "Yes, if. I'm not giving up this easily."
Of course she wouldn't. He couldn't even blame her for fighting. As much as he needed to take her back, she needed the opposite.
"I have to capture the monk first," he said stiffly.
"I didn't ask that. I want to know what happens after." Her eyes bored into his.
His mouth went strangely dry, and he backed up a few paces, unnerved by the intensity of her gaze. He wasn't sure he'd ever noticed how vividly blue her eyes were. "I don't know. I told you that."
"But you can find out." The girl's gaze never wavered. "Do it. Find out. Someone must know what's going to happen."
He shook his head. "I—I don't take orders from you. From anyone!"
"Except your father, apparently. That's all I want to know. I'm sure he'd tell you."
Zuko scoffed. "You don't know my father."
"No I don't. That's why I'm asking." She raised the comb again and started working through a mass of particularly unruly curls. "And I'm not going to let you forget it."
With a sigh that shook a little more than he liked, Zuko looked away. The question didn't hit him quite as hard as it did that night, but his insides still crawled. Maybe the awkward silence was better after all.
"Have fun with that. I'll probably never have an answer."
He turned to go, but before he made it more than halfway down the hall, the girl's voice reached him one more time.
"Are you going to just live with that?"
Author's Note:
You know, ever since I started writing (long, long, long before I started fanfic), I've been reading a lot of writing advice. And one of the pieces of advice I saw recently, kind of already knew but had never seen articulated, and strongly agree with, said that significant events in a story should be preceded (and followed) by moments of respite.
Consider this your respite ;)
See y'all next week.
