Note: I'm really considering tricking out my car; it's an Oldsmobile Achieva and I'm seriously considering doing it just because.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Avatar: Last Airbender characters or the story line.

Chapter Seven

The once yellowed eyed, ebony wolf was now a young man who could even be described as handsome; he was tall with the same skin tone, eyes, and hair of a South Pole water bender.

"Caine?" she repeated startled; her feelings dominated with chaos and confusion.

"Its me," he responded calmly.

"No, it can't be," she protested, "Your dead!"

"No, I'm alive," he said, and then added, " Why, do you want me dead?"

"No, of course not," she gasped, "Caine you have to let him go!"

Caine's eyes flashed dangerously, "No."

"You have to! He saved my life, I have to return the favor!"

"Why? He's noting but a killer!" He increased the amount of water the serpent had been made of.

She tried to bend the water so that it would go back to its natural form, but all she managed to do was add more to the serpent increasing it's power.

"Stop it now!" she commanded.

"I'm a stronger bender than you," he informed her with a smirk.

"Caine!" her voice was furious as well as pleading.

"Fine," he responded giving into her command about releasing the nearly drowned prince.

The serpent crashed back into the pool as Zuko crashed onto the bank, sputtering up water, and gasping for air. Kneeling down beside him, Katara helped the prince sit up as the last bit of the water in his lungs was coughed up. Noticing the man in front of him, he demanded, "Who are you?"

"His name is Caine," Katara answered for him.

"Where did the wolf go?" he asked unable to remember what had happened, with his head aching from the lack of oxygen to his brain.

"No where," Caine replied with hatred in his voice for the fire bender.

Zuko's amber eyes met Caine's sapphire ones their hatred for each other equally matched; then he noticed it a tiny scar on Caine's lips. His eyes narrowed darkly.

"Where is he?" flames tickled the tips of his fingers, aggression boiling in his chest.

"Caine is the wolf," Katara answered once again, helping him to his feet, "He can change his form."

"How?" the flames crept up his fingers; I don't like his, he thought, his eyes shifting as if expecting an unknown attack.

"Yeah, Caine, how do you do that?" Katara repeated stepping away from Zuko's flame engulfed arms.

Water swirled around Caine's arms, "I wont tell a fire scum like YOU!"

"Funny," Zuko worded his concerns, "How someone last night with your build, and with that same scar came into our camp, and threatened my life as well as hers."

"What are you saying, Caine wasn't…? No…he couldn't be…could he?" she looked at Caine, "You didn't…did you?"

"Are you really going to believe a fire bender?" Caine demanded pointing a finger at Zuko.

"Katara listen," Zuko turn to her, his eyes determined to make his point, "If he can change his shape then he might not even be your friend."

"Don't listen to him, Kara!"

"Didn't you say your friend died when you were seven and he was eight? He obliviously isn't eight," he argued further seeing the doubt in his eyes.

"He's right," she told Caine, her eyes filled with anger, "Caine was eight and your at least sixteen and on top of that you're a shape shifter, there isn't any telling who or what you really are."

"No they didn't kill me!" the false Caine insisted, "They took me along with six other boys to the general as slaves! He's the lair!"

Zuko felt his body being pushed back by a water bender attack knocking the air once more out of his lungs; If I keep this up I'll die of suffocation, he decided as his back slammed into the old oak tree. Before Katara was able to get to him a sheet of razor water cut her off; she barely had time to swerve to keep from hitting it.

"Fine, if what you say is true then who were the boys?" her voice was urgent.

"Haiku, Zane, Kayo, Chang, and Maim."

The fire prince could no longer feel his arm due to the dog bite, and his body fought every move he made as he stumbled back up to his feet, "He could still be lying."

"No," she cut him off, "They really did go missing; we always assumed they were taken but when the men went to find the fire benders who had attacked us, they vanished."

"I don't trust him," Zuko remained adamant about Caine.

"What do you know, fire trash?"

"What's wrong?" Zuko asked Katara, noticing that she was rubbing her neck uncomfortably.

"My neck," she said in a daze, "it-"

They watched as she fell to the ground letting a piercing howl escape from her lips as both her hands gripped her neck tightly.

"Katara, what is it?" Zuko inquired running toward her, but was cut off by a wave of water.

"Get away from her!"

Zuko, in a burst of energy, ran to her before Caine could stop him, moving her hand away from her neck he saw what he had expected, "She needs a healer."

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER!?"

"NOTHING! This is a death kiss curse only a spirit can cast it. Now come ON!"

"Fine! I'll take her to a healer."

No, I'm coming," he picked Katara up gently, ignoring the pain in his arm; he wasn't willing to let Caine see how badly he was hurt nor willing to let Caine be alone with her.

"NO!"

"We don't have time to argue!"

"Fine," Caine spat at him with immeasurable disgust, "but keep in mind I will kill you once she is safe."

"That makes two of you," Zuko responded sarcastically; his tone like a cold night in winter.

They entered the woods with an irritated Caine in front and a worried, bleeding, Zuko in the rear caring the now passed out Katara in his strong, yet injured arms. He despised the woods with a passion because the voice always came back to him when he entered them, but he knew he had no choice about the path that lead to the healer.

She will leave you now, the voice laughed, she'll go with him, oh yes, oh yes she will, and you'll be all alone like us. Fire and water do not belong together, oh no they don't. Either fire will evaporate water or water exstinguishes fire. They can't live together for destroying each other.

"Shut up!" Zuko hissed, ignoring the compelling thought of running.

"They wont," Caine, said icily, moving a low, leafy branch out of his way.

"Watch it!" he growled stepping over a fallen branch; he wanted so badly to tell Caine knew the truth, to gloat, but knew better of it. His instincts foreshadowed that something was going to happen and the least Caine knew he knew, the better.

"The trees bring out our inner most fears," Caine explained in an even icier voice, and then added, "If it hadn't been for Kara I would have killed you."

"Heh, whatever," he could hear a large waterfall in the distance.

"If our village hadn't been attacked she would have been my wife," he said, and then stopped suddenly, "We were betrothed."

He didn't know what to that, what could he say? One thing he knew for sure, he didn't like Caine and didn't trust him, even if Katara did.

"When she is well again we will wed and you will die."

He looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms, her neck consumed by spider like ebony threads being emitted by a circle where the spirit had kissed her, "You marrying her isn't any of my business, but if you want to kill me you will have to do better than idle threats."

They began to walk again, "They won't seem so idle when you're dead."

Caine lead him out of the forest and into a rather large city at the base of the volcano and a massive waterfall to the back right of the city. Several people of the city either stopped to make casual chat with their leader or to simply, and rudely, stare at the new comers. A small boy, who couldn't have been more than four years old, pointed a grubby finger at Zuko, and happily commented, "Fi-fi!"