Katara walked through the glass hallway that lead into the Sparring Gardens. She set her sweat towels down as well as her robe, oblivious of Zuko's choler. She heard the doors open again as Zuko entered
"Zuko. It's a little late to train, isn't it?" She asked lightheartedly.
"Ready yourself." he replied, walking past her without eye contact. He put his towel down, took off his shirt and took a fighting stance.
"Are you alright?" she asked, going into a counter stance. Her answer was a stream of fire lashed into her face.
She stealthfully dodge it and pulled a thin streak of water from the pong next to them and whipping it at his feet.
"Hey, go easy. I'm still a little tired form the trip here." she said almost tripping from the flying flames.
"I promise I'll go easy." he said, elbowing her in the ribs.
She spit up some blood and raised the waves out of the pond to smash Zuko onto the floor where she froze him to it.
"You promised you'd go easy." she said between coughs.
"Promises are taken lightly between us. You should know that, Katara. Soon to be married to the Earth Kingdom's Jet." he spat as he broke out of the thawed ice.
He tried coming at her but was tripped by lash-like water whip sent by Katara.
As he got up and tried to recover, Katara slammed her fists to the ground and rain fell from the sky.
"I wrote you six letters." she said as she went through such graceful movements as the rain turned to hail and stoned the injured firebender.
"You never wrote back." she said again as she watched Zuko squirm, trying to shield himself from the pelts of fist sized hail.
She crouched down onto one knew and gestured with her right hand for the hail to stop, and it fell as light snow. Meanwhile, she used her left hand to fling a thin icicle into Zuko's left arm.
She growled in pain as he pushed a torch of fire out of his palm towards Katara. She dodge it easily. The snow began to back down thickly, as Katara dodged flame, after flame after flame.
"You've gotten stronger..." he mumbled as he threw her another fire filled punch.
"It's the motivation." she said coldly. As she fell back into the snow which engulfed her completely.
Zuko was caught off guard, she was no longer in his sight or comfort range.
"I've been running a country for my uncle, I had no time to write to you. That doesn't mean you have to take another man to bed in spite." He said, turning in a full circle, leery of his opponent.
He heard the cringe of snow as he hurled a ball of fire into her. She tried shielding herself by raising a barrier of ice but was melted and Katara was threw three feet away onto the base of a bird feeder.
Zuko walked up to the humbled Katara as she began convulsing as she laid there. He knelt down and straddled the trashing girl and she stilled. He pinned her arms on either side of her.
"Or perhaps he hasn't had the honor of your bed yet." he said, regaining his composure and cockiness.
"Yes...I can see your artlessness in your eyes. You're innocence is still present. But for how long, I do not know..."
He plucked the green and black necklace off of her neck and threw it into the pond. She spat at him.
"Look me in the eye and tell me you love him. Tell me you want to marry him. Prove to me that you're not just marrying him to upset me!" He shouted into her face.
She curled up into a tight fetal position and turned away.
"I will marry him in Spring," she whispered, "I love Jet." she lied.
"We will be wed on a mountain overlooking the sea..."
Zuko smiled as Katara put up her last defense.
"And...and I love Jet. I'm going to marry him."
He hushed her, and carried her to his room. Katara did nothing to resist.
Nobody knew that as Katara laid with him under red satin sheets, Jet was boarding a ferryboat headed to the Fire Nation.