For Kimberly T., who wanted to know the fate of little Kita, who was sent to the heaters.
21. Traditions
Katara considered the Fire Nation Summer Solstice week-long festival both a blessing and a curse.
The good part was no classes for a week, and a lot of time spent in their cabins to paint banners and sew costumes and such, usually not being supervised because the others were scrambling to prepare for the holiday. Everyone could partake in the delicious food, a nice change from the gruel, warm water, mushy vegetables, and a cup of rice.
Which led to the negative side: celebrating their most important festival with as much zeal as the Fire Nation citizens and most of the grunt work and clean-up. Katara hated not being able to celebrate the Winter Solstice, the end of the Days of Darkness (she didn't even know when that was anymore), and a lot of other small festivals that she can only faintly remember. They'd tried to celebrate it once, but one of the prefects saw the decorations and burned them. She hated singing patriotic Fire Nation songs, painting hundreds of cheerful pictures of suns, writing thousands of greetings and wishes on banners, looking reverently at a firestone shaped like Agni, memorizing stiff dance movements and bows, and cooking with mounds of red pepper flakes and fire flakes.
Now that the Prince was residing at the school, the students and teachers alike worked overtime to make it the best Summer Solstice Festival he'd ever seen outside the palace. Katara sewed her own ceremonial clothes until her eyes ached and her hands bled from the constant pokes of the embroidery needle; Yue sang over twenty tunes until her voice began to get scratchy; Sokka hung banners so much that he swore his arms were stuck in upright position forever; Hahn swore over the multiple frivolities of the ball while carrying stacks of the finest dishes the school had; Jin sighed over the red ink staining her fingertips with a mournful look; and countless others, even the Fire Nation kids, began to grumble.
The Prince, of course, did nothing at all to help, but his lieutenant, if passing by, helped straighten a poster or lift something for a student until he was called away, which Katara found surprising and helpful. He was even seen once helping to paint a lantern, in a design of colorful dragons and firecrackers. Odd!
This little story helped cheer little Kita up, who was feverish in bed, eyes dull and skin always sweating. Every chance one got, Waterbending healers tried to place cool hands on her forehead and nonbenders placed cold cloths after the healing, but none seemed to help her every much. The hot weather did not cooperate—they tried opening the windows, dressing her in very light clothing, fanning her, giving her cool baths, and always slipped water down her throat, but only hot air blew through the room, and Kita shivered as if it was coldest blizzard wind. She stopped drinking her water unless prompted, and Katara began to worry when she began to pat her bed and think it was a giant slab of ice.
Some Earth Kingdom members of the rebellion managed to find some healing plants around the school and crush them into a poultice or make a watery elixir, but it did no good. The healer at the school gave them ice packs and turned them away soon after. He was of no help.
Katara cried, even though she tried her best not to around patients. It wasn't the first time she'd seen someone die due to neglect, but it seemed especially unfair—she was so small, so young, so fragile against the heater. She knew the school would just ship her in a plain wooden coffin and toss her back to her family with no apologies, or worse, a frail excuse like "she got sick, and we couldn't cure her." Katara bit her lip. Nothing was working, nothing...
The Waterbending healing, so treasured and prized by her people was failing. The faithful roots and herbs from the earth Kingdom were useless. She might as well sit back and do nothing. Katara buried her face in her hands, letting the water that coated her hands like gloves splash onto the floor.
The Fire Nation, she hated to admit, was technologically advanced. She (forcibly) learned in her lessons about the many machines and med—
Medicine! Special kinds, the ones they once gave to the little boy, The Duke, when his leg was infected when they brought him here. He was fine now! She'd seen him in sparring...
Her mind began to work. Surely, there was a cure for Kita in the hospital wing? They'd have to plan an emergency raid, but they'd never raided such a highly-secured place before...
No one could help, she reasoned, smoothing back Kita's hair. She cried out in her delirium. No one will.
"I am a friend."
She startled, then remembered who said that to her. Jee. The prince's...personal guard, or something.
Did he really mean that?
Katara bit her lip. She had to gamble. If she were caught stealing from the hospital wing, or anyone for that matter, their families would pay. Prince Zuko would certainly have something in store for her...
Jee seemed less...mean than the other Fire Nation adults. It wasn't much to go on—painting lanterns, helping with decorations, a whisper in a hallway, but it was better than nothing. She had to try. If not, she would raid tonight and pray to the Moon and Ocean Spirits for her success.
Katara wondered, as she walked down the hall, how she could seek an audience with Jee. Did he have an office? What if the Prince was nearby? What could be her excuse of seeing him alone?
She grabbed a nearby poster off the wall. She could pretend she needed him to...do something with it. Hang it in a taller spot? Ask his approval?
The girl approached the Prince's office, which was helpfully labeled. She looked next to it, an unmarked door. Was it storage?
No, someone was moving in there. She could see footsteps within the shadows of the lantern inside. It wasn't the Prince. The Prince didn't wear those boots. Was it Jee?
She knocked. If it was a mistake, she could always pretend and go with her poster inquiry idea.
The door opened, and Jee stood before her with a rather startled glance.
"Ni—no, um..." He didn't seem to know what to call her.
"Look, Lietenant Jee, sir..." Katara bit her lip. "One of my cabinmates, Kita, has a fever. She's really sick; she might...die. She's only eight, please, sir—can you...can you get medicine from the hospital wing for me?"
"Why can't you get it yourself?" The question didn't seem patronizing; he looked genuinely confused.
"The doctor, he won't help. Sir."
Jee angrily shook his head. "That's not right; that's not honorable of that pric—man. Letting a little girl die? Disgraceful..."
Katara held her breath.
"I think I know what to get her. Stay in your cabin and tend to her. I'll make it so you don't have to help in the kitchen today."
"How did you know that?"
"The Prince."
Katara winced. He hasn't forgotten me. "Thank you, sir. But how will you arrange—"
"I have access to the Prince's seal." The smirk he gave her made her wish he wasn't Fire Nation, that he wasn't the enemy. She almost smiled back at his outright attitude.
"Thank you. Thank you, Lieutenant."
The box had pills that dissolved instantly on Kita's tongue that were to be given to her every hour. Jee had even included a syringe filled with clear liquid, in case the fever got even worse. Katara hugged the package to her chest and closed her eyes.
Kita's fever broke two days later.
Katara brought her heaping platefuls of Fire Nation roast duck and bowls of steaming soup, which Kita devoured in an instant, rivaling Sokka's appetite.
Putting another forkful to Kita's gaping mouth, Katara wondered about Jee, her thoughts about the Fire Nation, and enemies. It was very complicated.
Prince Zuko watched her raise her arms and dance with true joy to the beat of the drums and the melody of the sungi horn. He grabbed her arm as she went over to sip on the punch.
"You are truly enjoying this festival, Katara?"
She beamed at him. "Yes, my lord."
Katara silently laughed at the befuddled look on his face as he released her, still staring at her as she went. Jee smirked at him from the corner.