"See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve."
-The Joker, The Dark Knight
He first sees her in a little anti-chamber outside the kitchens.
It's not like they could actually let her in the royal dining room.
They're waiting for breakfast to be served; Zuko, the girl, and his sister. Royal guards are lined along the doors in case the girl tries to make a run for it.
Personally, Zuko finds the girl fascinating. She has long, wavy brown hair that flows into her lap. She's parted it and draped it so that it completely covers the left side of her face. The one blue eye that's visible stares at the Fire siblings with surprising animosity.
She hasn't spoken yet, but Zuko is looking forward to whatever is bound to come out of her mouth. A girl who travels with bounty hunters is probably an interesting girl indeed.
An impatient huff comes from Zuko's right. Azula hates having to wait on her meals.
And finally the silence becomes too potent for his sister. "You look young," she drawls, addressing the girl sitting across from her. "How old are you?"
The girl glares unblinkingly at her. "Seventeen." Then she smiles—or, well, she half smiles, since Zuko can only see the right side of her face. "How old are you?" She throws the condescension right back at Azula.
If Zuko hadn't been watching her closely, Azula's irritated intake of breath would have been indiscernible.
"That hardly matters—"
"She's seventeen, too," Zuko answers on her behalf, barely repressing a grin. Watching his sister squirm is one of his few joys in life.
The visible side of the girl's face doesn't react. She remains blank.
Then the food is brought in.
It's a typical meal. There're fruits, dumplings, slices of fresh bread, and wine.
Two minutes later Zuko puts down his chopsticks. Watching the girl eat is too entertaining.
She's forsaken her utensils in favor of just using her hands, ripping off strips of bread and stuffing them into her mouth. It hits Zuko that this might be the first legitimate meal she's had in quite some time. There's a sudden flicker of pity for her, but the emotion snuffs out just as quickly as it ignited.
For awhile the girl seems oblivious to the two siblings watching her, but when she does she freezes. Then she continues with vigor. She looks them in the eye, tosses a dumpling in her mouth, bites into the fruit and then downs the wine in three gulps.
Zuko crosses his fingers and leans back into his chair. She's quickly becoming his new favorite person.
When she finishes her meal the girl flat out grins. She's mocking them, thinking that she's won this little game.
But Zuko is very good at games. He's been forced to master how they're played, or risk failure. Failure has never been an option for him.
He leans forward and props an elbow on the table. "Flip your hair over your shoulder."
Her grin immediately fades. "Why?" There's a slight tremor in her voice.
"So that we can see the rest of your pretty little face, of course."
She remains still.
"Move your hair. Over. Your shoulder." He's lowered his voice into something threatening.
She doesn't quite react the way he would like. Something sets in her jaw. "Or what?" she snaps. "You'll get one of your guards to do it for me?" She grabs a chopstick and breaks it in half between her fingers.
Every guard in the room moves their weapons into a 'ready' position.
Zuko isn't deterred. He holds up a finger and lets her see the flame at the tip of it. "No, I'll just singe it off myself."
All the blood drains from her face and after a moment the girl lets out a defeated sigh and flips the rest of her hair over her shoulder.
Azula doesn't react because she's already seen them, but Zuko finds himself drawing back, his eyes wide.
Azula was right, they're hideous.
Three thin, dark red streaks run from her temple to her jaw on the left side of her face, distorting her cheek and some of her hairline. A chunk at the end of her left eyebrow is missing and whatever or whoever gave her the scars just barely missed her left eye. Her left ear is completely mangled. Half of it is gone, torn off, Zuko suspects. He wonders if she can hear out of it.
For a moment all Zuko can focus on are her scars. He forgets that she has blue eyes, forgets that her hair is shiny and long, and forgets that she has a nice half smile. He even forgets the reason why she's there.
The sharp intake of multiple breaths as the guards get a good look at her face snap Zuko back to attention.
The girl has sunk low in her seat and ducked her head. Her bottom lip trembles, but there are no tears in her eyes. She doesn't look miserable. She looks ashamed.
The twinge of pity doesn't snuff out as quickly as it did before.
"You're dismissed," he says quietly. He snaps his fingers and two guards step forward and escort her out of the room.
Azula turns to face him, her eyes bright with maliciousness. "That wasn't very nice of you, Zuzu."
Zuko looks down at the food sitting on his plate. "No. It wasn't."
Zuko handles a lot of his father's paperwork. He's become strategic and knows his politics. It's an edge he forced himself to have over his sister.
He's sitting at the desk in his office when there's a knock on the door.
"Come in," he calls, ink brush posed in his hand, eyes tracing over the documents in front of him. Someone is trying to con his father into giving more money to a certain district. Zuko wonders which method he should go about in scaring this man back into his place.
"The waterbending subject made an escape attempt, Prince Zuko. She has been caught and bound inside of her room."
Still staring at the document, Zuko sighs and stands up.
It's a bit of a walk to her room. She's in the servant's quarters, which is on the other side of the palace.
When he finally inters the servant's corridor, guards are swarming outside of her room. They part for him instantly and he opens up the door to the girl's room without bothering to knock.
She's sitting on her bed (stripped of all its linens), with rope wound around her wrists and attached to the bed posts on either side.
Her hair covers the left side of her face again.
Zuko closes the door behind him.
She had used her sheets and blankets to create a makeshift rope; it is still hanging out of the window.
Zuko approaches the window and looks down. More guards are pacing the ground directly under it.
"Impressive," he says, glancing back at her. "How far did you get?"
Her blue eye narrows in dislike. "Almost to the front gates."
Zuko straightens up a bit in surprise, before leaning back against the wall and pulling an apple out of a pocket in his robes. He rubs it against his shirt in order to shine it, then bites into it. He chews, then swallows.
"Well, thank you, waterbender, for pointing out the flaws in our security system. From now on I'll have guards outside of your door and under your window. If you try to escape again, I'll post guards inside your room. I don't think you'd like that very much."
Zuko almost smiles at her reaction. She's pissed.
He eats another bite of apple. "Don't get so angry. You volunteered for this, remember?"
"You were going to kill my friend!" she spits, struggling uselessly against her bonds. Zuko doesn't bother to tell her that tugging against the knots is only going to make the rope tighten around her wrists even more.
"I wasn't going to do anything."
She lets out a cry of frustration before slumping back against a bedpost. "Oh, quit stalling then! Torture me and get it over with!"
Zuko snorts and the girl pauses, raising an eyebrow at him.
"That's what you do, isn't it?" the girl continues, but there's confusion in her voice. "To get information?" She frowns when Zuko continues to look at her in amusement. Then she huffs and turns her head away.
"There's nothing you know that we don't already know."
She gives him a funny look, then rolls her eye and shakes her head, long hair swishing about her face. For a moment Zuko gets a glimpse at her scars, but in a flash they're covered up again.
He wonders how she got them.
He takes one last bite out of his apple before tossing it at her. It lands at her knee. He walks towards the door. "If you're polite to the guards they might untie you, waterbender."
She grumbles something under her breath.
Zuko pauses by the door and looks back at her. "What was that?" He lowers his voice, tries to intimidate.
"I have a name," she answers coldly.
"That's nice." Then he's exiting her room.
He twists in the air, falls towards the ground but catches himself on one hand. He tilts his body, supporting his weight on his right palm and manages to avoid a ball of intense heat that had been barreling towards his torso.
He swirls his feet around in the air, sending whips of fire back at his opponent.
This man, one of his father's very own advisors, had disagreed with him last week at a war council.
Zuko had ended up winning the argument—verbally. But Ozai had still insisted that they settle their squabble the way that he always insisted things be settled: Agni Kai.
His fire whip lashes across the man's ribs, and the smell of burnt flesh permeates though the air.
Throughout this entire fight Advisor Jong has been giving Zuko looks of pure malice, more intense then Zuko is used to.
Zuko has a theory about this.
He's fairly certain that Jong is just upset that Zuko bedded his daughter three months ago but refused to acknowledge her at the royal family's next public function. Zuko had stated that Jong should just be glad that he had bothered to remember his daughter's name.
In retrospect, Zuko thinks that perhaps that wasn't the best thing to point out at the time.
Although he is clearly defeated, Advisor Jong clutches his side and struggles to get to his feet. His efforts prove pointless, and seconds later he falls to the ground and stays there, breathing heavily.
Zuko's heart starts to hammer in anticipation. He glances out of the corner of his eye at the crowd, sees his father watching with mild interest, sees his sister watching with absolute boredom, sees the majority of the palace scattered about the stands in this outdoor arena.
Zuko takes a deep breath, steadies his focus, calms his mind, and tells himself that there's no excuse to feel apprehensive. This is how all honorable Agni Kai's must end.
He darts forward, fire in his hand, and a moment all that can be heard is Advisor Jong's drawn out cry of pain. A fresh burn stretches across the man's left shoulder. Zuko hasn't struck his face. This is a kindness.
There's a polite scattering of clapping amongst the crowd and after a beat everyone gets up to resume their daily activities.
Zuko can feel the muscles in his legs start to quiver from exhaustion. The fight certainly hadn't been short.
Then there's a rush of voices, and Zuko turns his head to see the waterbender hurrying forward. They must have made her watch for educational purposes. Two guards instantly grab hold of her and yank her back, but not before she manages to kick one of them in the knee.
The look on her face is what surprises Zuko. It's one of horror and concern. For a brief moment he thinks it's for him, and he wonders if he was burned during the Agni Kai without realizing it and that's why she's s upset.
But then he follows her gaze and realizes she's concerned over Advisor Jong.
Advisor Jong, face tinged red from humiliation and pain, eyes the waterbender with distaste. Then he spits at her and Zuko catches the word "filth" coming out of his mouth.
The girl stills, visible blue eye widening. Then she bows her head, and her curtain of hair manages to hide the rest of her face from Zuko's view.
Zuko doesn't like it when people are rude to other people, especially people he's technically responsible for. So that's why, when he's walking past Jong in order to exit the arena, he sticks an ignited finger against Jong's right shoulder and drags.
Now Advisor Jong's shoulders will match.
Zuko's whole body aches.
They're in the same room they'd eaten breakfast in the other day.
His shoulders are stiff and his ribs are sore, but Zuko doesn't show any amount of discomfort as he sits down at the table. That was something he learned a long time ago—don't ever show pain.
Azula doesn't even spare him a glance as he pulls his chair up to the table. She looks bored and dispassionate. Nothing unusual.
Moments later the girl is escorted in. She looks better than she did this afternoon. The clothes she's dressed in are nice—not silk, of course, but they're made out of better material then those drab black things he had seen her wearing these past few days. Her hair looks shinier, and the dirt is gone from her skin. Azula has had her cleaned.
No one says anything and when dinner is served Zuko loses interest in the girl and focuses on his food. After today she will be his sister's problem. She's the one who's responsible for the benders, not him. It's not his job.
When Zuko is almost halfway done with his meal (and looking forward to taking an ice bath and then going to sleep) there's a clearing of a throat.
He glances up briefly, looks down, and then looks back up again.
The girl is staring at him fixedly, the food on her plate untouched.
Zuko manages to finish his meal with her eyes on him. Then he places his chopsticks onto his plate and meets her gaze. "What?"
She doesn't answer for a long time, content in just staring him down. When she finally does speak there is fury in her voice. "Why did you burn him?"
Zuko blinks. "Excuse me?"
She crosses her arms. "You had already defeated that man, so why did you burn him?"
Zuko manages not to let out an exasperated sigh. Figures someone like her would be upset over something as trivial as this. "That is how honorable Agni Kai's end." He leans back in his chair and raises an eyebrow at her. "Although, I doubt honor is something you really understand."
His wine leaps out of his glass and soaks into his lap. The waterbender is on her feet, visible blue eye wide and furious, with her fists clenched at her sides.
Zuko is too tired to care about wine having spilled onto his clothes, but still. She was getting on his last nerve.
Three guards move forward, prepared to grab her and drag her from the room, but Zuko holds up a hand and they still.
"I'll do it."
The girl shrinks back, immediately uneasy.
Good, she should be.
Anyway, this at least gives him an excuse to get out of here without having to deal with his sister.
He grabs her arms and tugs her out of the room, and is surprised when she doesn't put up any kind of struggle.
He thinks that maybe he should say something, threaten her, put her in her place. But he doesn't really care. He's so tired, and his body feels hot, like it always does after an intense fight. He just wants to lay down somewhere and close his eyes.
He finally reaches her room and lets go of her. He wouldn't have caught on that something was wrong if the tiniest wince hadn't crossed the right side of her face.
He looks down at her arm and sees a burn in the shape of his hand.
It's not that bad, she can run it under cold water for a little bit and it'll be fine. It's the fact that it's there in the first place that bothers him. Zuko frowns. He hadn't meant to do anything like that.
She doesn't make a noise, just inspects her arm with mild interest before letting it drop back down to her side. Zuko wonders if she is used to pain and if she, like him, has learned not to let on to it.
She's opening her door, the guards are taking their positions outside of her room, and for some unknowable reason Zuko finds himself speaking. "What's your name?"
She stops, turns, and eyes him. It's a calculating look, as if she's reevaluating him. "Katara."
Then she walks into her room and closes the door behind her.
A/N:
Thank you all so much for all the positive reviews! I'm glad everyone seems so interested in where this story is headed, and I hope you all still find it interesting after this first chapter.
Review and let me know what you thought! Also, mean!Zuko is deliciously fun to write.