She wants to see him.
"He doesn't want to see anyone," Iroh explains, exhausted. He has spent the past two nights burning every wick and pulling every string in an attempt to salvage the disaster wrought and received by his nephew. He has visited his brother twice, striving to temper the punishment into a compromise that will not leave the kingdom heirless. So far the results have been less than promising.
Zuko refuses to see him. In fact, Zuko refuses to see anyone; only the physicians have been allowed a few obligatory hours of tolerance before being banished from the prince's apartments. Even in the depth of his darkest hour, Zuko remains indomitable.
But Katara is stubborn too and two hours later she is following Iroh into the palace outer wings, towards the exiled prince's relocated quarters. Dressed in the pale, long silks of a scribe, eyes downcast and face blank, she draws no attention. A tray laden with a pot of tea, two cups, and a bowl of soup sits firmly in her hands. When they reach the locked doors, she detaches herself from Iroh's side and stands before the guards without saying a word. The guards, not knowing what to make of this reedy girl or the tea tray in her brown hands, or the Dragon of the West behind her, gaze at Iroh for guidance.
"Let her pass." He does not add, if she can. They move aside, well trained into obeying orders. Katara bows to Iroh, murmurs polite thanks to the guards, sets down the dinner tray, and then proceeds to start kicking the thick door with all her strength.
Dumbfounded, but not exactly astonished, Iroh watches her.
"Idiot! Vapid bombastic megalomaniac! Quit hiding, quit it right now, you blowhard! Cringe under the sheets all you want, sissy, but first you will damn well open this door and face me!"
Iroh, the guards, all the beings of heaven and administers of hell, look on with horrid fascination while the girl continues to barrage the door, and the one behind it, without mercy. Or shame: eventually Katara's insults leave the realm of the polite to travel among such creative diversity that Iroh is impressed in spite of himself. Apparently the past five years of Katara's keeping were not nearly as sheltered as he assumed.
The alarm of the rising commotion is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the shock of the door wrenching open. Katara's cries halt immediately, one foot frozen in mid-kick. She stares.
Zuko stares back.
It will not be, the physicians assured, a significantly debilitating scar. The burn was too precise, too controlled, to cause true damage. Iroh knows his brother, and he knows his nephew, and he knows that the damage dealt is more than true enough. This is a wound whose brutality goes beyond the authority of blood and bone, beyond mind and sight; it's about heart. The physical aspect of the act, Iroh understands, is a minor evil. And it is evil, a direct strike against innocence and trust, a crime recognizable to anyone with a working heart.
"Go away," the exiled prince hisses to the stunned foreigner.
She doesn't budge. With one sudden movement, Zuko grabs her wrist, the one clutched over her heart, as if to shield it, and pulls her forward. Close, their profiles show an ugly contrast. Yet there is a raw echo of sympathy; translucent with shock, her face reflects the horror and pain he dares not show. The girl does nothing to break free.
"Leave me alone," Zuko orders with lethal softness.
Katara's voice is a shade away from silence but still Iroh overhears, "Coward."
Zuko's throws off his grip, pushing, but Katara has braced herself; she doesn't stumble at the shove. The two stare at each other with hopeless resolution.
Two days ago Iroh watched a boy fall, burn, for the callous sake of pride. Then it was a surrender of a child's faith to the devastating laws of the world. Now, Katara's head slowly bows in obedience to Zuko's glare, and Iroh recognizes the voice of sacrifice.
This boy. This girl. His children if not in blood then by the unspoken commandments of heart and honor, and in their darkest moment of need Iroh finds his hands empty of aid. The Dragon of the West has never felt more defeated.
"Jellyfish," Katara says. The comment seems addressed to her shoes, or the hem of her robe, but Zuko's unmarked eye narrows.
"I ordered you to—"
Katara looks up at Zuko. The sudden movement changes the air of the moment; Iroh can feel something rise against the pressure and he knows, with joyous clarity, that she is going to surprise them all again.
"I refuse to take orders from a spineless jellyfish." She picks up the tray. "Even if that jellyfish is a prince."
A muscle twitches in Zuko's jaw. It is not, Iroh suspects, a gesture of anger but…astonishment. Still: "How dare you, you stupid Water peasant—"
"Shut. Up." Katara bites out. "Please." Shoulders set, tray firmly clenched, she marches past the glowering prince into the darkened room. Iroh barely has time to register her departure or the answering storm of outrage on Zuko's ruined face before the boy turns on his heel and blasts after her.
The door slams shut behind them.
The shouting begins.
It is too muffled to reveal words, but Iroh can imagine the scene being carved on the walls inside. Five years of friendship are being unleashed to rail against pride, against pity, against the desolate places newly scorched into Zuko's soul, against the sadness underneath Katara's horror.
There is a shrill crack of porcelain, and the whoosh of released heat, a cry, and then silence. Straining, Iroh hears only the pounding of his own blood and breathing.
The door opens. Katara's face is pitched tight, livid, and her eyes are wide with a suspicious brightness. The sleeve of her robe is singed.
"If it's not too much trouble," she says in a tone Iroh has never heard her use before and never suspected she had, "could someone please bring more soup? As well as another teacup? Please."
Hell would obey her.
She's trembling. Iroh notices the fine quiver running down one small arm into the small hand digging small fingers into the weave of her robe; a silk trail of fireflies is being crushed in her fist. But her gaze is invincible, and she stands small and determined in her mission to be a blue-eyed barrier between a hurt boy and the world.
If Katara had been at the duel, Iroh wonders, would she have looked away?
New cups and more soup arrive. She accepts the tray with faultless courtesy, the poise of her manners unmarred by the severity of her anger, and steps back into room. The door closes without a sound.
Iroh waits for the shouting to resume.
It doesn't.