They have been flying for weeks before he sees the Fire Nation beneath them. Between Appa needing rest, the pair needing to scavenge for food, and all three mourning Aang, the journey has taken longer than expected. Still, he feels his spirits lift as he see land in the distance, smoke billowing out of the volcanoes that mark the beginning of Fire Nation territory.
"Toph, I see it!" He exclaims in a voice that he hasn't heard from himself in weeks. It's a voice filled with hope, with relief, with something close to joy; a voice that, for a second, has no recollection of the situation it's owner is in.
The girl groans and slowly sits up, biting a flake of dead skin off of her lip. "Huh?"
"The Fire Nation, Toph - I can see it!"
She bolts up, eyes suddenly wide and a grin on her lips that he hasn't seen in a while. "The Fire Nation," she repeats, as if lost in the words. "Finally!"
In another version of events, he would be fearful of entering enemy territory with nothing but a bison, a twelve year old and two bronze coins in his pocket, but the thought of finally - hopefully - seeing his sister overrides any fear. He has never been separated from Katara before, and it rouses an ache in his chest that only worsens when he reminds himself that she might not be here, that they might have lost her forever, that she might not even be alive.
He grips Appa's reins tighter, gritting his teeth; he has lost his mother, he has lost Yue, and now he has lost Aang - he refuses to lose his sister too. He thinks back to all those years ago, his father's steady hands on his shoulders and fleets of Water Tribe ships towering above his small stature, tears in his eyes as he promised his father to protect her; to protect her before he even knew what that entailed.
And where is Katara now? Locked up in some cell, rotting away? Alone and running from Fire Nation guards? In some pile of bodies that firebenders will burn until they are ashes, just another faceless, nameless thing reduced to dust?
"We will... y'know, find her, right?" A quiet voice catches his attention, quieter than it should be, knowing it's owner. It's the voice she's spoken in ever since the Crystal Catacombs, childlike and unsure and so scared, almost whispered under her breath.
He thinks back to all those weeks ago; Aang's charred body on the floor, limbs sprawling in all the wrong directions and blood cracking on his pale skin, the joy that never left his eyes replaced with a final expression of fear, of horror, of absolute agony. His body had been removed as soon as people realised he and Toph had entered, but he had seen it, and he knows that image will never leave him.
And Toph - he thanks Tui and La and Yue and every other spirit he can think of that she didn't have to see that image - but the sound she made when she felt Aang's dead body on the floor, felt his beatless heart and lifeless limbs, will stay with him forever. It was the sound of a child who had never encountered death, experiencing it right in front of her. It is as if the scream she had made when he choked out the words Aang's dead, had used up all of her voice, until all that was left was a fearful whisper. And it terrifies him, to know that Toph is using that voice.
He swallows. "Yeah. We'll find her." He assures her, his chest tight. We need to. He pats Appa with one hand, feeling some of the tension diminish as the beast roars. "C'mon, boy. Let's get to the Fire Nation."
ー
She watches the water, staring out as the sea merges with the sky. She hates to admit it, but being on this ship is far better being in her cell; here, the crisp air fills her lungs, fresh and salty and not at all stuffy, and she is surrounded by her element. As infuriating as it is to be in the middle of the ocean and unable to bend her way off of this ship, she can't deny how good it feels to be near water. Maybe it's because of this, or maybe it's because she has now healed her injuries, but she is feeling better than she has in a while. Not good, by any stretch of the imagination, but better.
She doesn't know how long she has been standing at the bow of the ship before footsteps approach her. She turns around immediately, finding a middle aged man standing a few feet away from her, donned in a Fire Nation uniform, his black hair streaked with grey. She backs away almost subconsciously, reminded of what happened the last time an older man approached her on a ship.
"Hello, um- Katara, is it?"
She raises a brow, crossing her arms over her chest as suspicion begins to replace any lifted spirits. "How do you know my name?"
A small smile flickers on his lips. "There's only eight people on this ship; it's not too hard to memorise that many names." He pauses. "I'm Zui, by the way. Commander of this ship."
"Well, what do you want?" She replies, voice less accusatory, but still harsh.
"All the workers on ships like this usually eat together, at least for supper. I know you're not exactly a worker in the sense of a cook or an engine room operator, but I thought I should at least offer for you to join us later."
She thinks about it for a moment, She has previously told herself that she won't trust anyone from the Fire Nation, but maybe it won't be so bad to get to know the rest of the crew; she doesn't know how long she'll be on this ship, but it won't just be a weekend-long ordeal, and she'd prefer to know someone here other than Zuko.
"Yeah, I guess I could join you guys."
"Great. I'll call for you to come below deck whenever the food's ready."
ー
In the time between her conversation with Zui and the setting of the sun, Katara is shown shown her room. Admittedly, however much she has declared to herself that she hates being on this ship, she finds herself biting back a joyous grin at the site of a bed to sleep on.
The past weeks have consisted of little more than laying on cold, gritty floors of ships and prison cells, her nights rendered sleepless from the aching in her back, her wrists, her ankles; the pain of loss in her chest, and of fear of faceless men in her stomach. The temptation of a soft, warm bed, of a closed door and a dulled light and a feeling close enough to safety to satisfy her, fills her lungs; it is unable to resist, no matter how early in the evening it is. She shuts the door - no, her door -, climbs into her bed, and drifts off.
.
She is woken by Zui's voice, telling her that dinner is ready; she opens her eyes and finds the man standing in her doorway, apologies of waking her up filling his throat.
"No, no," she says, hastily getting up from her bed, "I shouldn't have fallen asleep, I don't usually sleep so early, I just- I haven't had much of a bed to sleep on in a while, and-"
He simply shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Let's just not hold dinner up."
When they arrive at a small room with a table placed in the middle, she is met with the faces of five strangers and a bowl of steaming food. Zui gestures for her to sit down.
"Friends, this is Katara. She's will be travelling with us."
She finds herself relieved that Zui took it upon himself to introduce her to the crew; they look intimidating, three of them well-built with fire in their eyes, and two of them having skin crawling with ink. Being below deck, she doesn't exactly have any water to use if she needed to, which is unsettling, considering all of their stares are locked on her right now.
Still, a younger man with a loose top knot and a tattoo of a dragon wrapping around his arm gives her a stern nod, hard but laced with something near enough to respect. "I'm Kazuo, I work in the engine room. Nice to meet you."
And just like that, his words begin a series of introductions. There are two more engine workers sitting around the table; Lee, a short, brown haired man with broad shoulders and a scowl set into his face, and Akemi, a taller woman with smooth black hair pulled away from her face, and paler, calculating eyes. Ikuro, an middle-aged man with a creased forehead and black ink adorning his hands, says he is the cook, and Megu, who sits across from Katara, is a cleaner, short but sinewy, her facial features mostly delicate except for her burning brown eyes.
Katara only takes a few bites of her food before a conversation is started.
"So," Akemi begins, eyes narrowed, clinging to the blue of Katara's dress. "You're water tribe."
"Yes, I am," She replies, a tinge of defensiveness sparking in her voice, aware of the scrutiny in the other's stare.
"Of the Northern or Southern Tribe?"
"Southern."
The engineer parts her lips, her expression becoming hard to read, eyes never leaving Katara as silence fills the space between the two.
"Do you guys really... y'know," she lowers her voice slightly. "eat people?"
The waterbender almost jumps back in surprise, her eyes widenened in disgust at the thought of eating another human. "Wha- why would we eat people? We don't- we've never eaten each other! Why would you even think that-"
"63 years before Firelord Sozin began the war, the two water tribes lost contact with each other. The Southern Tribe was devastated without the North's resources, and eventually, became so low on food that they resorted to cannibalism; that's why there are so few people left in the Southern Tribe."
Kazuo butts into the conversation before Katara can reply. "Agni, Akemi, did you memorise the whole damn world history book? I could've sworn you just quoted that thing word for word."
She simply shrugs. "I just have a good memory, I guess."
The waterbender barely even hears the exchange, her ears still ringing with disbelief. "We're not cannibals! We have plenty of fish and seal and sea prunes to eat! And there are so few people left in my tribe because our men are fighting in the war and your nation took all our waterbenders!"
There is a moment of stunned silence in which everything seems to move a fraction slower; Akemi's eyes widen and Ikuro's lips curve into a small smile, everyone at the table suddenly focused on the Katara. It is only Lee that breaks the silence, slightly too early and with humour lifting the scowl from his face.
"Don't take what Akemi says too personal, little lady. She's always been a bit obsessed with school."
The subject of his words crosses her arms. "Maybe that's because I actually have an engineering degree."
"Oh, it's always you and your fancy degrees. I learned everything I know from my old man, and I turned out just fine." There is a tinge of pride in the man's voice, accompanied by a trace of nostalgia, almost unnoticeable.
"Oh yeah? Did your old man also teach you how to end up in prison?"
The silence returns. It's tenser this time, thinning the air between the seven until it is hard to eat their supper, hard to even breathe. This time, Katara breaks it.
"Prison?"
Akemi is the second to speak, her tone apologetic as she glances around the table. "Sorry. I thought she knew."
"Knew what?" Katara demands.
There is a shorter moment of quiet, before Ikuro speaks up. "Last time Prince Zuko was banished, the ship workers he received were all criminals. Not murderers or rapists or anything, just crimes like stealing, or assault, or speaking against Firelord Ozai; not extremely dangerous individuals, but people that the Firelord would rather not have around. This time is no different."
It takes Katara a second to process the information that she's sitting in a room full of criminals. But, with this newfound knowledge, also comes curiosity. "Why... I mean, why you guys? There must be thousands of criminals in the Fire Nation. Why were you all picked?"
"Well, we all needed to be capable of doing the jobs needed on a ship, which narrowed it down a lot. But this particular mission wasn't meant to be known by the public; Firelord Ozai didn't want anyone to know Prince Zuko had ever come back. So, they needed to choose people who didn't have any family or close friends to tell. We all seemed to fit the criteria." Ikuro explains, glancing over at a certain, cross-armed engineer. "And before Akemi throttles me, I will inform you that she's not a criminal; she volunteered to come, and the palace trust her enough to know she won't tell anyone about the Prince's return."
"Yeah, Akemi's probably more suited to eating with Prince Zuko than down here with us hooligans." Lee jokes, his enjoyment in making fun of her becoming clearer every time he speaks.
A snort comes from across the table. "Yeah, as if Prince Zuko is trusted by the palace," Megu says, brown hair swaying as she speaks.
The group laugh at the comment, and Katara raises a brow; unlike Ming, the ship's crew don't seem to be particularly sympathetic of Zuko. She can't help but chastise herself for what happened back in the Crystal Catacombs - his own nation doesn't trust him, and yet somehow, she managed it in under an hour.
Still, she finds herself curious on why he is distrusted by his nation; she has valid reasons for disliking him, but she has no clue what he did to prove himself unworthy of trust in the eyes of the Fire Nation, or at least the palace.
"What'd he do? To not be trusted by the palace, I mean."
Lee begins laughing again, the scowl that was on his face when she first sat down almost unimaginable as he chortles. "I think you mean what didn't he do," he tells her. "For starters, the Fire Lord was sure he wasn't going to be a bender when he was born; didn't have a spark in his eyes, apparently. I mean, imagine that - the first born son of the Firelord being a non-bender! And even though he did end up being a firebender, he was certainly never very good."
Katara finds herself already confused. Zuko had always appeared as a talented firebender to her, powerful and agile and annoyingly determined. But, before she can question it, Megu adds onto Lee's point.
"Yeah, and lets not forget about when he challenged the Firelord to an agni kai for his war strategy - I mean, think of that; a thirteen year old boy challenging his father to a duel!"
"Woah, woah - Prince Zuko didn't challenge the Firelord to an agni kai. The Firelord challenged him." Lee butts in, his eyebrows furrowed and his words drawing the others into the conversation.
"Wait," Kazuo says. "I thought the Prince challenged a war general to a duel."
"No, no, it was the war general who challenged him."
"Wait a second, how was it a war general? The agni kai was between Prince Zuko and the Firelord."
The room erupts into conversation, each person with a different version of how the story - which Katara soon infers is of Zuko's banishment - really occurred. She glances around the table, deciding not to try to figure out who is remembering the correct version of events, and finds that Ikuro is the only one not contributing, his lips pursed and his dark eyes obviously lost in thought. When he notices her stare and the two lock eyes, she raises her brows, deciding that if anyone knows how Zuko was really banished, it is him. He looks away.
As the argument dies down and the group move onto less controversial topics, Katara decides that, although Zuko still isn't worth her thoughts in any way, she will find out how he got banished, one way or another. At least it will keep her entertained as she tries to figure out how to get off of this ship. And who knows - maybe it will help her figure it out.
ー
FINALLY this chapter is written! i'm sorry for taking ages to update i had such bad writer's block for this chap i started school nd stuff so yknow, im already STRESSED!
Sorry there was no katara zuko interaction in this chap, i wanted to introduce the ship crew and kinda show what propoganda and indoctrination has done to a lot of fire nation people, i don't really see any of the crew as bad people, just ignorant (and they're not really to blame for that either). I mean, it's an 100 year war so there are like three generations brought up on lies, which is CRAZY, so I just wanted to kind of give some insight into how i think a lot f fire nation people would be. And of course an update on toph nd sokka, since i haven't written about them in a while!
Thank you to jacpin2002 for the review! I didn't realise that this is how you're supposed to reply to reviews on ffnet until now (im still not sure? hopefully this is how people do it lol) so also thank you to everyone who's ever reviewed this, and thank you to everyone who's reading this for finishing this chapter!