Water
Sparring
"Haven't you ever set up a tent before?"
Zuko glanced up from the pole that he was trying to wrestle into place. Katara was watching him, lips pursed, from the opposite side of the half-set tent.
"I have," he grunted, scowling.
"Then why do you look like you're trying to use chopsticks with your toes?" she yanked on the topmost pole, and he almost lost his grip on his end. "Would you hold still?"
He stopped moving, one of the poles dropped from his hand, and the other rolled down until it caught in the crook of his elbow. "Ugh! It would probably be easier to use chopsticks with my toes." He tried to hook the fallen pole with his foot to lift it back up. "Fire Nation tents aren't nearly this complicated."
The pole that Katara was working with jabbed him in the chest. "It's not complicated, you're just not listening. Hold this pole steady until I'm done. We're not doing everything at once."
Zuko grumbled, but she didn't respond until she'd fixed the horizontal pole in place and fit her end of the tarp over the frame.
She flashed a smile at him, looking insufferably smug. "See? Not complicated."
With a frown, he wrestled with the three poles that he was still holding, trying to work out how the carved slots in the ends were meant to fit together. "Is this stolen from Sokka too?"
"No." Her voice sounded a little lofty, and she crunched through the snow toward him. "I'm not normally a thief. The only reason I had to take his sleeping bag was because mine would have been too small for you."
Zuko shot a glance up at her as one of the tent poles finally slotted into place. "If you didn't steal it, then—"
"It's mine," she answered. Her tone held steady, but he thought that her face flushed a tiny bit. It was hard to tell for certain. Though the sky was still plenty light, Katara's actual color didn't seem to change much even if she flushed. "Our tents are the same size. And I don't feel like listening to Sokka complain again."
His forehead creased, and his face warmed a bit. He did his best to focus on the tent again.
"What's that face?"
He glanced up to find her staring at him, just a pace or two away, then looked back down again when two of the tent poles finally snapped into place. "I don't need a tent," he said. "I told you that already."
Katara crossed her arms. "And I told you that you're wrong. Just because the weather has been decent since you got here doesn't mean that it's going to stay that way. Unless you want to freeze to death in the next snowstorm, you need a tent."
He felt his forehead twist into a scowl. She was probably at least half right—one way or another, he'd need some sort of shelter eventually—but there was still something about this that got under his skin a little. He just couldn't figure out what exactly it was. Maybe the fact that it was Katara's tent? Or the fact that he'd already accepted too much help within the past few days, that this was only pushing him farther into reliance on the others?
No, neither of those sounded right. It was a little weird to be in this position, forced to accept help from people who by all rights should have loathed him, but it had been a few days now. He was getting used to that.
Katara raised an eyebrow at him.
Zuko couldn't stop himself. "How long do I have to stay out here?" he burst out. The final pole snapped into place, and he took half a step back from the tent to face her. His hands clenched, and he felt his shoulders tighten. That was it. That had to be it. The tent made things feel more permanent—like his stay at the bottom of the pit was going to last a very, very long time.
There was a pause as she fiddled with the nearest edge of the tarp. Then she shrugged. "I'm not sure. Shouldn't you have thought about that before you came here?"
His scowl deepened. "When I came here, I wasn't exactly planning for a crazy girl to shove me into a hole."
She pursed her lips. "When you came here, I don't think you were planning for anything."
"I—I would have figured something out."
"I'm sure you would." Katara crouched down to fix one of the tent stakes. "I'm just not sure you would have figured anything out before you got captured by someone else."
He started to form a retort, but before the words made it out, she stood up again and looked him square in the eye.
"The boys and I met with Yue earlier today. She agreed to meet you as soon as we all have a free day to come out here. After that—I'm not going to make any promises, but maybe we can figure something else out." She gestured vaguely at the walls around them. "Something other than this."
His breath caught, and his heart sped up a little. He stared at her. "Really?"
She wouldn't meet his eyes, and she gave a small shrug. "Maybe. I mean—I really can'tpromise you anything. If Yue has a better idea, we'll try it, but for now—you could still be killed if someone else finds you. Wherever you end up, we still have to make sure everyone is safe." She glanced his way. "At least this is working."
"Working?" Zuko raised his eyebrow. "I'm slowly losing my mind out here, and you consider that working?"
"You're still alive. And you kept me locked up a lot longer than this, so stop complaining." She flicked his arm, but thanks to the parka, he barely noticed.
"I—" he frowned, then took a slow breath. "I know." He didn't like it, but he was well aware that she was exacting some strange sort of revenge by keeping him down here.
For a while, there was silence between them. With some guidance, Zuko checked around the base of the tent to be certain that the stakes were all secured against the wind.
"You know," Katara ventured after a pause, "I have been thinking a little."
Zuko glanced up at her from where he was crouched by the last stake. He raised an eyebrow. "A little?"
She made a face at him. "Yes, a little. I just thought—I mean, it's not exactly safe to let you wander around on your own, but if you want, there might be a way for you to get out of here for a little while at a time."
His eyes narrowed, and he slowly rose to his feet. "What are you talking about?"
"Well—I passed a test earlier today. I'm going to move on to intermediate waterbending lessons starting tomorrow."
"And?"
"And I'm supposed to start sparring with the other kids. I've never really done that before. Beginning lessons were mostly drills, and now—" She looked down at her hands and picked at some of the bits of snow stuck to the ruff of her mittens. "I guess—I could use some practice. I don't want to make a fool of myself."
Zuko frowned. "So—you want to spar with me?"
A shrug, and Katara still wouldn't look at him. "You're really the only person I can think of. Aang is still in the beginners' class, and he doesn't really like fighting anyway. The waterbending boys usually avoid me because I'm a girl, and the girls don't know how to fight—I don't know what else I can do."
"You want me to help you get better at fighting?"
She huffed, and this time, she looked up into his eyes. "If you don't want a break from this hole, that's fine. I can figure out another way to practice my bending."
Zuko sputtered. This felt like blackmail. "You can't—you can't just ask something like that."
"Why not?" She tossed her hands out to the sides. "We're on the same side right now. If we practice together, we're both going to get better at fighting. That's what we need if we're going to stop Zhao."
For a second or two, he could only stare at her. She had a surprisingly good point. Getting a bit of practice against a waterbender—getting more bending practice in general—would make a world of difference. Still, the fact that she would suggest such a thing was mind boggling.
He kicked at the snowy ground, then looked at the sleeping bag, then at the tent, then finally, back at Katara. "I'll have to think about that."
"Well don't think too long. I start my new lessons tomorrow. If I want to be any good, I have to start practicing soon."
Zuko rolled his eyes. "Wow. I'm so glad that you've thought so much about helping me out."
She stuck her tongue out in return. "You're welcome."
He snorted. Oddly, he was getting used to this. Even more strangely, he didn't really mind her sarcasm. There was something—soft about it. Like she wasn't actually mocking him. Like her teasing was, if not well-intentioned, then at least not malicious. Like she didn't mind being around Zuko all that much. And Zuko, now that he thought about it, didn't mind being around her either.
In fact, he almost liked it. Even when she was teasing him, there was something nearly pleasant about it.
Zuko almost suspected that this was what friendship felt like.
Wait. Was this friendship?
When Sokka walked into the training hall the next morning, he found Hahn crouched by a little supply cubby, digging furiously through his own belongings, red-faced. Hahn's father, Siqiniq, stood off to the side, arms crossed as he watched.
Sokka stopped just inside the door. He wasn't sure whatwas going on, but he had a feeling that it was going to be delicious.
"It was here, Dad. I know it was," Hahn said, loud enough to make it clear that he hadn't heard anyone else entering.
"I hope you're right. Though I still can't understand why you would have brought your formal parka here, of all places. Your everyday parka is more than good enough for training."
Hahn looked like he'd swallowed a whole goosehawk egg in a single gulp. "I'm engaged to the princess now. I can't be walking around the city smelling like sweat and looking like a slob now that I'm the future chief."
Sokka had a very hard time holding his expression steady as he edged along the far wall. He hadn't really intended to come to lessons early—Katara had gotten up right away at dawn, which had woken Aang, and the two of them had made too much noise for Sokka to sleep through—but now that he was here, he was a little happy about that. Getting Hahn in trouble had never been the plan when he and Aang had stolen the parka, but it did make for a nice bonus.
"A true chief worries about his people before his appearance, Hahn. I suppose if you've really lost it, then you'll have to learn that lesson whether you like it or not."
"It's not lost! I swear, it has to be here somewhere." Hahn dug more vigorously through the pile. He almost looked a little nervous.
Sokka couldn't restrain himself any longer. Sometimes, poking a sleeping platypus bear was irresistible. He sidled up to the cubby where he'd left a spare set of his own mittens and shot his most disinterested glance down at Hahn. "Is something lost?"
Siqiniq sighed. "Apparently so."
"I didn't lose it!" Hahn spun around, still on his knees, and stared up at Sokka. "Have you seen my formal parka? It was here yesterday. I know it was."
Not yesterday. Aang and I stole it two days ago.
Sokka frowned up at the ceiling, then met Hahn's eyes again and shook his head. "Can't say that I have. But the one you're wearing looks plenty fancy to me."
"Are you insane? The quillwork on this one is pathetic. I can't possibly face Princess Yue—"
"Hahn." Siqiniq didn't raise his voice a bit. He didn't need to. The menace was clear enough in his tone.
Hahn cut off, and though it was relatively dim this far from the door, Sokka could see his face redden.
"If that's how you feel about it, then it seems to me that you don't really need a new formal parka for now. I'm sure your mother will be happy to hear that she doesn't need to start work on a new one."
"But this isn't my fault, Dad!"
Siqiniq shook his head, looking unimpressed. "We can discuss this later, Hahn. The rest of the class will be here soon." He gave Sokka a slight nod of acknowledgement before glancing back at Hahn. "Help me finish setting up. Clearly your other parka isn't here."
Hahn watched, nearly speechless as his father walked away, then scrambled up to face Sokka. "This is all your fault," he hissed. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but it has to be you."
"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," Sokka answered breezily. No one had seen him and Aang sneaking into the training hall. And Hahn didn't even know when the parka had disappeared. There was no way he could possibly guess what had actually happened.
"I think you do," Hahn hissed. He leaned in weirdly close and narrowed his eyes in what was probably an attempt at intimidating him.
Sokka stared right back. Hahn couldn't prove a single thing, and Sokka didn't feel the least bit bad about what he'd done. The parka was being used for a much better cause than boosting Hahn's dumb ego now.
Not that Zuko was necessarily a good cause. He was kind of a jerk. But the information he'd brought was worthwhile. That counted for something, anyway.
"I think you might be planning to kiss me," Sokka said, forehead twisted up in an expression of mock confusion. "Sorry, man, but I'm not really interested."
Hahn's jaw dropped open, and he shoved Sokka back. "You absolute bastard."
That was enough, however, to get Hahn out of his face. A bit more than usual, actually. And with Hahn keeping as far away from him as possible, practice passed relatively uneventfully. There were plenty of dirty looks from the opposite side of the room, but there was nothing new about that. Sokka even thought that he made a little more progress than usual—and he took a great deal of pleasure in volunteering any time that Siqiniq asked for help. Infuriating Hahn even further was too much fun to resist.
Sokka was just helping to put the war clubs back into the rack at the end of practice when Hahn stormed over to him again.
"I don't know what you're doing, but stop trying to make me look bad!"
Sokka took his sweet time replacing the last club in its rack before he turned back around. "I'm not doing anything. If you look bad, that's not my fault."
"You little rat. I know that you're up to something, and I'm not—"
"Hi, guys!" Aang popped up behind Hahn. "Are you two friends now? This is great!"
Hahn whirled on Aang, and Sokka had to suppress a snort. Either Aang was being really naïve or he was an absolute master at faking it to irritate Hahn. Either way, Sokka was a little impressed. Who would've thought that a little bit of friendliness could be so effective?
"I would never be friends with this—"
Siqiniq walked in just long enough to send a positively scathing look at his son, who flushed dark and clamped his jaw shut. Ha. This was kind of delicious. Hahn needed to be knocked down to size a little more often.
Grinning, Sokka turned toward Aang. "So what's up, Aang?"
He shrugged. "Nothing much. I just got out of lessons a little early, and I thought we should go check on Red again."
At that, Hahn looked up and whipped from one of them to the other. "What the hell is Red and why do you need to check on it?"
Sokka glared, first at Aang—briefly—then at Hahn. "What makes you think that's any of your business?"
Unfortunately, Aang realized his mistake at almost the same instant. His eyes widened, and he clapped a hand over his mouth.
A sneer crept across Hahn's face. "Oh, this is good. This is really good. The stupid southern rubes are up to something." Crossing his arms, he rested a shoulder against the wall. "Believe me, I'm going to figure out what it is. And when I do—" He paused to give a ridiculous, affected laugh. "Well. When I figure it out, you two had better be prepared to change my mind before I give your secret up."
After a slight pause, Aang had managed to wrestle his expression back under control. "Oh, that. It's not a big deal either way. Red is just—a new pet that Sokka and I got a few days ago."
Sokka nearly choked. Damn it, Aang. That was quite possibly the worst excuse they could give Hahn. But the instant that Hahn looked his way again, Sokka nodded as seriously as he could.
"Yeah, exactly," Sokka lied. "Momo—that's our lemur—was starting to get lonely, so we had to find him a friend."
"Right!" Aang bounced on the balls of his feet. "So while Katara was in her healing lessons, Sokka and I went out for a walk just outside the city, and we—"
Sokka reached over and clapped a hand over Aang's mouth. Nope. That was already too much information. He gave Hahn a forced smile. "Like we said. Not that important. It's way beneath your concern, so butt out." He pulled back from covering Aang's mouth and patted his shoulder instead. "Ready, buddy? Let's go."
"Hey!" Hahn shouted, trailing them toward the street. "You've got to be a special kind of stupid if you think I believe that. When I said that I was going to figure it out, I meant it."
Shit, shit, shit. Sokka didn't have that much faith in Hahn's intelligence, and he didn't care about Zuko personally, but he did care whether he and the others got in trouble for harboring a firebender. And whether they were able to get all the information they needed out of Zuko.
Which meant that Sokka was going to have to do his most masterful acting to throw Hahn onto the wrong track. He could do that. He could bluff with the best.
He whirled back toward Hahn. "And what? Are you going to rat us out to my sister, or—" He paused, widening his eyes in an expression of mock horror. "That's it, isn't it? You're going to tell Katara that we got a new pet, and she's gonna be so pissed at us, and then—"
Hahn's dumb, weaselly face pulled into a sneer. "Now you've done it. I swear, I'll make you regret ever—"
It took all of Sokka's will to keep from laughing. Damn, this was easy.
"Hahn!" Siqiniq called from farther back in the room. "Get back here. Remember, we still have a discussion to finish."
Sokka took that chance to grab Aang by the shoulders and hustle him outside before Hahn could squeeze in another word.
"Sokka," Aang hissed once they were out in the sunlight. "I'm not sure that was a good idea. He's going to try to talk to Katara now."
A scoff. "Are you kidding? That's exactly why it's a great idea. Either Hahn is going to make a fool of himself talking to Katara, or he'll take some time to cool off and realize that if we're just worried about Katara figuring out what we're up to, then it can't be that big a deal. It's perfect."
Aang frowned, and his brow furrowed. "Or he could decide that he didn't believe you and go looking for Red. That wouldn't be good."
"And here I was, thinking that you wanted to be friends with Hahn."
"Well—I wish that I could be friends with most people. But now that I've met him, I think you're right about Hahn. He doesn't seem very nice."
Sokka threw his arms up into the air. "It's a miracle! I have a new friend in the pessimist club!" When his arms came back down, he cupped his hand on the top of Aang's head.
Aang shook him off and wiped his head with his sleeve. "No way. I'm never gonna be a pessimist."
Sokka rolled his eyes, then perked up a moment later. "Oh! That gives me another idea. Let's stop at the house before we go see Red."
They stopped just long enough to grab a small bundle of food from the house, and Sokka ignored the confused looks from Aang while he chased down Momo and stowed the lemur under his arm like some sort of wiggly little ball.
Aang watched him suspiciously all the way out to the lake, but there were no arguments, no questions. When they reached the pit, Aang even went so far as to let them down with his bending so that they stood opposite Zuko, who sat cross-legged on an old, sad-looking blanket.
"Hey, Zuko," Aang said brightly. There was no response. "Zuko? Are you meditating?"
"I was trying to," Zuko answered after a pause, his eyes shut tight.
Sokka rolled his eyes. Zuko and meditation sounded like the world's worst combination. The guy had about as much patience in his entire being as Sokka had in his big toe—most of the time. Admittedly, Sokka's patience ran a bit thin at times, but Zuko's seemed practically nonexistent.
"Does it work very well when you're down here? My old friend Kuzon always used candles when he meditated, and he said that it was really hard to focus if he waited too long after sunrise."
Zuko answered through clenched teeth. "I can't tell. It's impossible to focus when people won't stop talking to me."
"Oh. Right. Sorry about that."
There was a loud, very un-meditation-like huff, and Sokka took just a moment to snoop around the pit—the tent, he was relieved to find, was Katara's, not his, and there didn't seem to be any other 'borrowed' supplies lying around—before he crept nearer and held Momo up close to Zuko's face.
"Hey Zuko," Sokka said, waggling the lemur just enough so that his long, fluffy tail dragged in the snow. "We brought you something."
Zuko squeezed his eyes even tighter shut. "I don't care. Don't you two have something more important to do?"
"Oh, this is important. Vital, even."
All of Zuko's stubbornness couldn't seem to outweigh his impatience, and after another short pause, he let out a sharp breath. "What could possibly be so important that you have to—" His eyes opened just a slit, and Zuko sprang to his feet with a yelp.
Doubling over with laughter, Sokka lost his grip on Momo, who scurried back to Aang. "You—you were—"
"What the flaming hell was that for?" Zuko shouted.
Sokka couldn't stop cackling. He tipped onto his backside. "Zuko's scared of Momo!"
"I—no,I'm not! How would you like it if I shoved a weird, bug-eyed animal in your face?"
Sokka was laughing too hard to respond. That had to be one of his best, easiest pranks ever.
Aang shook his head. "To be honest, Sokka screamed a lot louder than that the first time that Momo woke him up."
"Hey!" Sokka protested.
"It's true, Sokka. I don't see why you're laughing so hard. Momo has scared you lots of times before."
Okay, that was unnecessary. Aang was supposed to be on Sokka's side. He did his best to scowl, which was difficult when chuckles and snorts kept squeezing their way out.
Arms crossed, Zuko glared down at him, then shot a look over at Aang. "Why are you even here?"
Aang shrugged. "I thought we were just bringing out some lunch."
"And the lemur? Why is it here?"
"He. Momo is a boy."
"Whatever! Why is the lemur here?"
"I don't know! It wasn't my idea."
Slowly, still letting out short, hiccup-like laughs, Sokka pushed to his feet. He had a good reason. He always had good reasons. "Because," he began, doing his best to hold a straight face, "we had to talk to Hahn before we came out here. And now, what we told him about you being Momo's new friend is technically true. Mostly."
"What?"
"Oh!" Aang looked a little sheepish. "Yeah. We, um—we had to tell him that we got a new pet."
Zuko turned toward Aang, eyes widened to the point that they seemed ready to pop. "You said that I'm—"
"It was really the only thing we could say without getting you in trouble."
Zuko's expression darkened. "I hate you both."
Sokka snorted and clapped Zuko on the shoulder. "You can try to hate us all you want. But I promise you, it's never gonna last."
"Yes. I've been thinking, and the answer is yes."
Katara dusted the snow off of her parka and stared at him. She'd just arrived at the pit a few seconds ago—she'd barely even reached the bottom of the pit, and yet Zuko was acting like they were in the middle of some sort of ongoing conversation. Which was undeniably weird, but she couldn't decide whether it made more or less sense coming from him rather than anyone else. "Um—that's great, I think? I don't actually know what you're talking about, but—"
"Oh." His eyes widened and his cheeks flushed. "I—um. Sparring. Last night, you asked me about sparring, and I finally decided. I'll do it."
"Oh!" Katara brightened. "You're sure about that?"
He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah. I haven't really had a chance to firebend in—ages. It's starting to bother me."
"Okay." She paused, giving a slight frown as she stared off to the side. She'd never really thought this far ahead before. Offering to spar with Zuko was one thing. When she'd asked, she'd been fairly certain that he would simply refuse, and they would go on like always. But now that he'd agreed—it was hard to decide exactly how she felt about it. Had this been a mistake?
"What, are you changing your mind now?" Zuko demanded.
She scowled and crossed her arms. "Not necessarily. Although if you're going to get an attitude with me, then I might." Her lips pursed. "You're going to come back here without arguing, right? You know I can't let you wander around just because you agreed to spar with me."
Zuko scowled, then looked downward. "Yes, I'll come back."
"Because if you don't, I'm going to freeze you into a great big block of ice and drag you back here by your dumb ponytail."
He met her eyes, still scowling. "What happened to trusting me until we were done fighting Zhao?"
She shrugged. "Did I say that I didn't trust you? I'm just making sure you know what's going to happen if you give me a reason not to." That was fair, wasn't it? She still had to take precautions, even if he didn't like it. At least she had the decency to be honest.
He made a face at her. "How thoughtful."
Katara stuck out her tongue, then motioned him closer, staring up at the icy walls around them. "Get over here unless you're planning to climb out of here on your own."
Zuko took a single reluctant step in her direction.
"No," she said and grabbed his elbow. "Closer than that." She yanked until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with her.
From the corner of her eye, she watched him stiffen, then shift uncomfortably.
Katara rolled her eyes. "Stay there," she ordered. "Otherwise, there's a good chance that I'll drop you."
There was a start of a response, but before Zuko could really speak, she looked downward and fractured the ice in a careful ring around their feet. Then, once the ice beneath them was entirely separated from the base of the pit, Katara pushed against the rest of the base. Slowly, inch by inch, they began to rise atop a freshly frozen column.
At the first movement, Zuko stumbled a bit, and she felt his hand clamp onto her shoulder. She didn't look his way. She couldn't without breaking her focus, but she was acutely aware of his proximity. A moment later, he recovered his balance, then another moment later, the icy pillar lightened when he grabbed the rim of the pit and pulled himself onto the surface of the lake.
Katara stopped the column short and froze it in place, then scrambled out after him. For just the barest instant, she was near-panicked at the idea that he might try to run, but when she straightened, she found Zuko just a few paces away, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Though he was looking off toward the city, he hadn't moved any further. He wasn't trying to leave.
She let out a slow breath and brushed the snow off of her knees. The strangest thing was that now that she saw him waiting for her, she wasn't actually surprised about it. Days ago, it might have scared her. Under the pale light of the crescent moon, dressed in Hahn's parka, there was very little to give away the fact that Zuko was an outsider. If he wanted to, he could run off into the city without raising any immediate alarms. But he wasn't. And because of that, Katara was a little grateful that he had the option to blend in. It wasn't a perfect disguise, of course, but it would very likely help keep him safe.
"I was sort of expecting you to throw me up against the wall," Zuko said, not quite looking at her.
Katara pursed her lips. "Are you complaining?"
"I—no."
"I've been practicing. I figured out a better way to get in and out of there." She tugged at his sleeve. "Come on. It's probably best if we don't take any chances on anyone seeing your firebending."
He grunted his assent and fell into step beside her. "What exactly do you have in mind?"
She pointed to a snowy rise on the far side of the lake. "Probably just past that ridge."
"I meant with the sparring. Either there are rules, or it's a fight to the death. Which is less fun than it sounds."
"It almost sounds to me like you're speaking from experience."
Zuko didn't answer, and when Katara glanced his way, she found his jaw muscles clenched and his eyes turned sharply away.
Oh. She looked forward again, at the broad expanse of smooth, hard-packed snow. Much as she wanted to hear the rest of that story, she didn't think that was the best idea. Not yet. Not when they were still figuring out how to talk to one another.
Instead, she stuffed her hands into her own pockets. "I've only sparred once, but Master Taqqiq's rule is that we fight to immobilize. If you can't move, you can't bend, so you lose."
"I can still firebend," Zuko said. There was still a bit of tension in his jaw, but his tone was relatively even. "And I don't think you want to be immobilized by fire."
"Sounds like you're assuming that you'll win." She paused, then gave him a slight nudge with her elbow. "Have a better idea, smart guy?"
He frowned. "In the Fire Nation, it's usually first burn or blood. But—on my ship, we fought to knock each other down. Rounds didn't end until someone stayed down for at least five seconds."
Katara raised an eyebrow. It wasn't that she was surprised that there had been precautions on his ship—she'd seen enough of Zuko's burn scars to make it clear that he'd had at least a few bad training accidents—but it made no sense that the rest of the Fire Nation was so willing to harm its own people.
"I think that could work," she said eventually. "I can easily knock you over."
Zuko scoffed. "You can try. Besides, the hard part isn't knocking me down. It's keeping me from getting back up."
"I can say the same to you."
"Yeah? How would you know? You've only sparred once in your whole life." It was faint, but she thought she could hear the slightest edge of a smile in his voice.
"You say that like you haven't watched me freeze a whole load of pirates solid."
He rolled his eyes, but as they continued, they fell into lighter, easier teasing. It was—nice, oddly enough. Thatwas new. Katara had gotten used to Zuko a while ago, but for a long time, she hadn't even been positive that he could smile. Even though he was hiding it, even though the smile was mostly concealed in his tone, she sort of enjoyed the change.
Sparring sounded like a lot more fun when Zuko was at least showing small signs that he might have a sense of humor.
And as it turned out, sparring with Zuko was—different. They'd found a bowl-like depression with a flat bottom just on the far side of the ridge, and after a few minutes of mild bickering over how many bouts they should fight, launched straight into battle. It was, at first, a little uncomfortable. Though Zuko was obviously a more practiced bender than Katara, his motions were a bit stiff, a bit rusty. But once he knocked her off her feet in their first match, they seemed to reach a balance of sorts. Zuko found his stride again, and Katara began to see the patterns in his bending.
It was a world apart from any fighting she'd ever done before, not that she had much to compare it with yet. Sparring with Zuko was wild and quick, challenging and unpredictable. And, in its own strange way, fun. After Zuko won their first match, Katara bested him in the second, and narrowly lost the third. As much as she wanted to win, she found that she didn't mind the alternative as much as she'd expected to. It just felt good to move, to fight, to experiment, and, occasionally, to be caught off guard and tossed onto her backside in the snow.
She poured everything she had into their fourth and final bout, and it was obvious, even at a glance, that Zuko was doing the same. At long last, they both knocked each other over at the same time, and Zuko was just a second faster to rise than she was.
Breathless, with his hands on his knees, he stood a few paces away from her. "I—got you," he panted. "I won."
"Oh, please." Slowly, Katara pushed herself up on her hands. "I was winning. I saw—I saw you almost faceplant—when you got up."
He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "But I didn't. I won."
With a groan, Katara flopped onto her back again. "Fine. You won. This time." Try as she might, she couldn't keep herself from grinning. She may have lost, but she'd fully expected for her first attempt at sparring outside of lessons to go much, much worse. This wasn't a victory over Zuko, but it felt like a victory nonetheless.
"Ugh." There was a soft fwump as he dropped back into the snow too. "Is it normal to feel like I'm boiling when everything else is frozen?"
"Mmm. Probably. But don't get too eager and take your parka off. That's a very good way to freeze to death."
"Noted." He paused for a long while, and when he finally resumed, his voice was easier, steadier than it usually sounded. "You okay?"
"Mm-hmm." After a slow sigh, she sat up to find Zuko seated across from her, out of reach, but not by much. "I feel like I'll fall asleep if I lie down again. What about you?"
He gave a lopsided shrug. "I think I forgot about half the muscles I can feel now."
Katara smiled. "You're starting to sound like an old man."
A scowl flashed across his face, but even he couldn't hold it for long. "Excuse me for being a little out of practice. I trained for hours every day back on my ship. There hasn't exactly been a lot of chances for me to get back into that routine since the explosion." He gave a small, thoughtful frown. "This is the first real bending I've done in—at least a month, I think."
"Not too bad, considering how out of practice you are, then," Katara said. He wasn't a perfect fighter by any means—he was sometimes inelegant, and rash more often than not, but he was still good.
"Not too bad? I beat you three times."
"Maybe so, but I'd been waterbending almost all day before I came to see you."
"Which means that you've had a lot more practice than I have."
"Which means that I'm a lot more tired than you are," she countered. "Or that I was already tired when we started. Or—something."
He raised his remaining eyebrow. "Wow. How convincing."
"Shut up." She tossed a handful of fluffy snow at him. "I can't think when I'm tired."
"Sure you can't," Zuko answered, but his tone was light, and he lapsed back into silence.
It was nice. The stillness of the night was only broken by faint whispers of breeze and the distant barking of turtle seals. It was almost soothing. It was almost like they were both comfortable with the quiet.
"You know," Katara said after a considerable pause. "I thought about you sometimes. After the explosion—I couldn't figure out why you'd done it. It would have been so easy to leave me behind, and if you had—maybe you would have been safer." She curled up, resting her chin on her knees. "When I left you there—I didn't even know if you would survive." She watched him through the soft fringe of her eyelashes. "It seemed so ridiculous at the time. I was so sure that I'd never see you again. The fact that I just kept thinking about you—I thought I was losing my mind."
Zuko looked down, hesitating a bit before he said, "The first time I remember waking up after the explosion—one of the only things I can remember is asking my uncle if you were okay."
"Really?"
He gave a small, tight-lipped nod. "For some reason—I just had to know before I could go back to sleep."
"Why is that?" Katara asked in a near-whisper.
He met her gaze, scowling just a bit. "How should I know? You're the mind reader, not me."
A laugh escaped against her will. "What? Zuko, I'm not a mind reader."
"Close enough. You've always had a weird talent for getting inside my head. Making me doubt everything I'm doing." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
"You mean—what, now?"
He shook his head. "Back on my ship, mostly."
Oh. She looked down at her hands and adjusted the cuffs of her mittens. "I never said anything that wasn't obvious to anyone who was paying attention. Maybe you already doubted everything, and I was just the first person who was brave enough to be right."
He scowled. "I think I'd rather believe that you're a mind reader."
"Then that's too bad for you, because I'm not."
"Hmpf." Zuko looked downward again. "You know—I was supposed to hate you. It would have made things a lot easier, but I could never quite get there."
She watched him for just a moment. That was a strange thing to hear now that they were on the same side, but she understood it a little better than she liked. Life would have been a lot simpler—though probably not any better—if they'd just been able to go on being enemies.
"If it's any consolation," she said, "I did hate you for quite a while. Imagine how horrified I was to wake up one morning and realize that I didn't have that in me anymore."
He snorted, and this time, she was certain that she'd gotten a glimpse of a slight, lopsided smile. "That makes you one of the first."
Silence fell over them, and Katara found herself glancing his way over and over again, catching glimpses of his odd, half-long, half-short hair, his habitually furrowed brow. How did people hate him? Seeing Zuko as an enemy was one thing. Katara had certainly had enough experience on that side of things—but the way he talked, and the way that most of his crew had treated him—it just seemed unfair. He was awkward and moody, of course, but he wasn't a bad person. Not really.
"Think the others are wondering where you are?" Zuko asked eventually.
She shook herself back to reality. "By now? Almost definitely."
With a groan, Zuko pushed himself slowly to his feet, then hesitated before offering a hand to Katara. "Come on, then. I'm sure your brother is going to blame me, and I don't want to know what kind of stupid revenge he's going to come up with. He already shoved a lemur in my face once today."
Katara hesitated just until he finished, then grinned, accepting his hand. "Do I want to hear that story?"
"You might, but I'm not telling you what happened."
"That's okay." She dusted herself off and started toward the lake, shooting a look back at Zuko. "I can always ask Sokka."
He grumbled about that, but he jogged a few steps to catch up with her anyway.
She nudged him. "Relax. They probably think that I'm still in healing lessons. That's what I'm going to tell them, anyway."
"Right. Because things have such a good track record of working out where I'm concerned."
She made a face at him, then lapsed into silence until they were nearly at the pit again. After a slow breath, she stole another look at him from the corner of her eye. "Zuko—thank you for agreeing to this. Really. And—I'd really like to spar with you again sometime."
If she wasn't mistaken, she thought that he flushed a bit. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I—yeah, probably sometime. If nothing else, it was nice to get out of the hole for a while."
"The hole is for your own safety."
He raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was to keep me from wandering around unsupervised."
"It can be two things. And I really wouldn't be that surprised if Princess Yue had a better idea for where you could stay after she meets you."
"Ugh." They drew even with the edge of the pit, and Zuko dropped down at the rim, feet dangling into the hole. "I keep trying to forget about that."
"Hey." Katara nudged him with her knee. "Yue is really nice."
"Great. All the more reason to think that she'll hate me." He sighed, and before Katara had a chance to respond, he let himself drop the rest of the way down.
She frowned. "Doesn't it get tiring to be such a pessimist?"
"Good night, Katara." His voice was uncharacteristically soft, and though it was hard to see into the darkness of the pit, something in his gaze felt soft too.
She felt her face heat. "Good night."
Author's Note:
Apparently it's the time of the year where I become a slacker who doesn't finish editing until the very last minute. Oops! But hey, updates have still been on time, so I guess I'm doing something right.
I was really not expecting this chapter to turn out so long, but it started out pretty long in the draft phase, so... I doubt I'll ever learn. Still, it was a lot of fun to go through this whole progression with Zuko—from being reluctant and grumpy about accepting more help to being REALLY grumpy about the other boys' visit to deciding 'I'm annoyed, clearly the only solution is to fight something' to actually sparring with Katara and turning a teensy bit softer by the end.
Iroh was right—Katara is a good influence on Zuko, and it's so much fun to write them together!
As always, reviews are much appreciated! I'll see you back here in two weeks for the next chapter!
