ZW 2014 Day 4: Cobalt Blue

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True Flag

She's drumming her fingernails on her desk when he walks in.

She's drumming her fingernails on her desk when he walks in, and she spares no time for greetings or pleasantries. "How did you know it was me?"

"Nice to see you, Katara. It's been a long time."

She glares at him. "Don't make me ask again."

"You're terrifying," he remarks drily. He's taller than he was last time she saw him-it must have been shortly after he'd been burned-and he's let his hair grow back to hang shaggily over his forehead. There's corded muscle in his arms that never used to be there, and his pale skin has taken on a light gold tone where he's probably been sunburned a thousand times. His voice has deepened somewhat and taken on a raspy quality that she doesn't remember at all.

"Answer my question."

He smirks at her, this new rogue personality that shouldn't be Zuko. "You're pretty famous, you know. Infamous, actually. Your ship is the fastest vessel anyone's ever seen this side of the equator, so I just waited for one I couldn't catch."

His voice sounds slightly sinister, like he's trying to be aloof, cool, imperial. "Drop the Azula voice, Zuko. It's not working for you."

Zuko raises his eyebrow. "Azula voice? Really?"

"We've known each other since we were children. You don't talk like this."

He hangs his head, but when he raises it, there's a smile. "You haven't changed."

Katara crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him pointedly. "So what do you want? I'm still not marrying you."

And Zuko, like his old self, squawks unbecomingly. "I'm not marrying you either!"

As it turns out, he does want an alliance of sorts. Zuko's life has been a difficult one since he left the palace, mostly because he's hiding from pretty much everyone in the world, and Katara was the only person outside of his crew that he thought might not kill him on sight.

"I still might kill you," she growls, crossing her arms tightly.

"You haven't yet," he snaps.

"Maybe I won't kill you. What's your mission?"

"To find the Avatar, and help him defeat the Fire Lord."

"The Avatar is dead."

Zuko sighs heavily. "Avatar Aang is dead. Everybody knows a new one was born into the Water Tribes. Tell me where he is, and I won't bother you again. I just want to end the war."

The wall explodes. Bits of flaming wooden ship spray them, and Zuko launches himself across the desk and pulls Katara down, curling himself around her and ducking under the furniture. Loud stomping echoes on the floor, and something drags the desk away before Zuko can think to hold it down.

"I'm the Avatar!" Korra shouts, hands on her hips, childish belly sticking out of her shirt. "What are you gonna do about it?"

Katara groans.

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They spend a few more weeks in the Fire Nation, and in that time Sokka and Zuko work out nearly every difference except that Sokka swears to hate him forever for touching his sister, and Zuko protests that he's never touched Sokka's sister. Sokka shouts that he will touch his sister someday, and Zuko wonders why he's not supposed to ever touch Sokka's sister but continues to protest that he doesn't want to anyway.

They try not to have these arguments when she's within earshot after the time Zuko saying he didn't want anything to do with her made her cry.

"Look, I didn't mean it! I'm just trying to get Sokka to shut up!"

She had sniffled wetly and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "Go away. I hate you."

That stung, more than he might have expected. "You don't want to marry me; why do you care?"

"We're supposed to be friends!"

Zuko's foot, ever stuck in his mouth, did him no favors for the rest of the day. Their mothers had finally consoled her, with soothing words about silly boys and Zuko didn't mean it like that, sweetie.

Azula loses interest in them almost immediately, and she summons her school friends within two days of Katara and Sokka's arrival, so the palace is divided into two groups, and rarely do they intersect. The dark haired girl, Mai, occasionally watches them impassively from the shadows, but she never asks to join and Zuko only invited her once.

"Mai hates everything," he'd explained.

Katara had turned to look at her, wondering if maybe the other girl just needed a more persistent inviter, but Mai glowered at her from behind the pillar she'd been standing under and slipped into the palace.

It bothered her for the rest of their stay, but Zuko was nonplussed.

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"What ever happened to Mai?" She asks, eyeing him over the plate of rice.

He coughs, choking on the fish in his mouth, and turns bright red. "Mai?"

"You know, the gloomy girl who used to watch us when we played with Sokka, that summer."

Zuko stares blankly. "She did?"

Katara huffs. "We tried to get her to play with us but she just stood there and…glared," she says, picking up a clump of rice.

Shrugging, Zuko returns to his plate. "It was a long time ago. We were seeing each other, for a while, until I left."

She feels a prick of something deep in her belly, sharp and insistent. "Where is she now?"

He raises his eyebrow at her and peers out from under his loose hair. "I think her father is governor of Omashu now. It's been a couple of years."

With a little smile fighting to pull up the corner of her lip, Katara relaxes. "Not for long."

A dry chuckle. "No, I guess not. So, when are we going to talk about the Avatar?"

Stiffening again, Katara glowers at him. "When I know this isn't some trick to bring her back to the Fire Nation. You could have 'disappeared' so I wouldn't suspect anything, and now you're here to take her back to your father."

"You think I'd let my father burn off half of my face and leave my home for that?!" He launches himself up off the floor, fury blazing in his gold eyes. "What's wrong with you? Do you not remember me at all?"

As if he'd struck her, she recoils. "It's been a long time," she says, coldly, quietly. "I haven't seen you in over a decade."

"I understand," he snaps. "You're not the same as you were either." Turning on his heel, he stomps out of her quarters, slamming the door on the way out.

"Aaaargh!" She cries, slamming her fists on the table. If the crew is concerned, they know enough to let her be, and she spends the rest of the night jerking water around.

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Goodbye was harder than she thought it would be. Katara clung to Sokka as they leaned over the side of their ship, the wooden board cutting into her abdomen. She trained her eyes on Zuko's face, his mouth curled into a frown and his brow furrowed. His uncle placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Sokka screamed next to her, "Bye Zuko! Come visit us next summer! We'll stuff you full of sea prunes! And seal jerky!"

Zuko almost seemed to smile, and he waved a little. He smiled a bit more widely at her. Azula looked bored, the way she was glancing at her fingernails. The ship began to pull away when the sails caught the wind, and Katara swayed with the momentum. They'll come visit her next year, she reminded herself, and Zuko promised to bring her a clothespin to use on her nose that's a little prettier, decorated maybe, than the one he'd pulled off the clothesline.

She memorized his face like it would be the last time she'd see him anyway, which was for the best, because he didn't come the next summer, or the summer after that, or any summer, and she used the same clothespin for her nose until it was splintered and gray.

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Katara is still locked in her quarters, fingering the enamel of the clothespin from the hawk, when the crew sounds an alarm. An unknown ship, off the port stern, heading to intercept Prince Zuko's stolen ship. Flying a cobalt flag with a white flower-another pirate, they ask her.

It's nothing she's ever seen before, but the way Zuko is looking at her says that he'll be ready to forgive her if she'll forgive him, so she strides over to him and wraps her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "It's been hard, the last few years."

He's tense, hard and cold as ice, but then she feels his arms loop loosely around her waist. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have blown up on you like that. You have a right to be careful."

The crew eyes them curiously, but (wisely) no one comments.

"Don't worry about the ship," Zuko murmurs. "I've seen that symbol before. Usually when my uncle is being cryptic about something."

Katara pulls away and raises her eyebrows at him. "Kind of strange that I should meet you and friends of your uncle in the middle of the ocean in the same afternoon." But she sends the crew the sign to stand down anyway.

They are both somewhat surprised when the third ship sends a plank over to them and an older man, hair gone iron gray and belly slimmed down, walks across. His beard has grown full and long, but the golden brown eyes hold the same warmth that Katara remembers. A grin cracks across her face, and a glance at Zuko reveals the same expression on his face.

"Uncle!" He shouts, walking as quickly as he can without seeming undignified.

"Prince Zuko!" Uncle Iroh is very clearly just as thrilled to see his nephew as his nephew is to see him. They embrace tightly, and Zuko beckons Katara to join them.

"Uncle, what are you wearing?"

A dry chuckle. "You don't like my new Pai Sho outfit?"

"I think it's nice," Katara interjects. "Blue is my favorite color."

Uncle Iroh beams. "And I've prepared your favorite tea aboard my ship."

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"The Order of the White Lotus has been forming alliances with various…groups for many years. We've been keeping an eye on my nephew. He has a habit of getting himself into trouble." Uncle sips on his tea, and the steam curls up around his head, as if he's a dragon.

He tells them about the White Lotus, a group with members from the three remaining nations, once dedicated to things like poetry and Pai Sho. It's recently militarized, he explains, because some of their members in the Fire Nation had heard rumors that the Fire Lord had begun dismantling the warship building rigs in the Eastern Ocean now that the entire coast had been conquered, but the earthbenders who had worked on them were nowhere to be found. Massacres have been reported in the inland towns, too far inland to be typical collateral damage. The Fire Nation is advancing, sending troops deep into the Earth Kingdom, to the places the bright blaze of Sozin's Comet hadn't touched.

Taking back Ba Sing Se isn't an option; they've moved too slowly for that. What they can do, he believes, is retreat to the catacombs with as many people as they can gather up, and bide their time.

"No," Katara says, with an air of finality. "I'm a waterbender. I belong with the water."

Iroh sips his tea again, nodding. "We have several master waterbenders in our company, Captain."

"I won't leave my crew."

Zuko steps in. "Uncle, the Avatar is on the ship."

Katara glares at him. "You're not supposed to tell people that!" She hisses.

The teacup clinks into the saucer. "The Avatar? That is news. Perhaps you're right, Captain."

She snorts, as if to say, "of course I am."

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They raise the flag over both ships, Fire Nation deserter and Water Tribe rebel. It's cobalt blue, with a white lotus printed in the center. Uncle tucks his hands into his matching sleeves and smiles as Korra, bored, plays with the water near his feet and the rain over their heads. Jee waves to them from his place near the mast as the rest of the former soldiers prepare to raise anchor (and Hell). Zuko waves back with his free hand, then salutes. His other hand rests on the small of Katara's back, ostensibly to steady her against the howling wind and the rocking of the ship, and Katara leans into him, presumably to stave off the chill of the pouring rain.

They all know better, but he won't make them admit it just yet.

It took a few days, but they've come up with a plan that even Sokka couldn't improve upon. The White Lotus will center its operations beneath Ba Sing Se, in tunnels carved by earthbenders over centuries. There's a blind earthbender leading a resistance in Gaoling who will be a valuable asset-the rumors are that she can see vibrations through her bending. There are other rumors too, suggestions that she can bend metal, but none of them are sure how much of this to believe.

Katara will maintain her activities, with Zuko on the ship with her. Jee will take command of the old steamship and work out a way to establish a supply line to the catacombs. There's a water source in there, and they hope to be able to tunnel out to the coast and establish an underwater drop. If the current doesn't cooperate, there are plenty of waterbenders in the Order to be found.

Once she's turned 16, Korra will join them and complete her training to defeat the Phoenix King.

"Do you think it'll work?" Zuko asks, curling his arm a bit around her waist.

"I hope so," she says, fingering the clothespin in her pocket. "I hope so."

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AN: As requested by Bonzenz, a sequel to Clothespins. Hope you enjoyed it!