Sorry, I know it's been a while! But since school is out now I should have more time to work on my writing. I'm planning on a Superstition update pretty soon, so look out for it!

Prompt: #95 - Found
Word Count: 542
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: This was originally meant to be a quick little Blutara drabble. Now look what it's morphed into. sigh This is part 1 of 4.

It was pure luck that she found him in the first place. That, or one too many swigs of water before bedtime. Katara liked the former better, so that was what she planned on telling him the next morning; she figured the idea that the only reason he was alive was her having to pee in the middle of the night wasn't exactly flattering and probably wouldn't make him feel any better.

To be honest, she hadn't really found him so much as stumbled over him and fell flat on her face. Grumbling furiously, she stood up and brushed herself off, marching towards her destination to relieve herself. It wasn't until she tripped over him again that she realized that, no, that was not just an overgrown root she had tripped over, and yes, it was breathing, so yes, she probably should stop and see if it was humanoid or wounded or something like that.

Because she was such a caring and compassionate soul, of course.

And a good thing she was, too, because he was heavy. She couldn't see his face in the moonlight, but she was pretty sure he was male—mostly because he was shirtless. She couldn't see how bad his wounds were, but they must have been pretty bad, because he didn't even make a noise when she dropped him the first time. Or the second time, or the third time.

Katara figured it must have taken her about half an hour to half-carry, half-drag the poor man back to camp and lay him down on her sleeping bag. Even though she couldn't see the wounds, she could feel most of them well enough to heal them. Finally, assured that her mystery patient wasn't bleeding and that his breathing was at least fairly regular, she lapsed into a light sleep against a nearby tree.

>> >> >> >> >> >> >

She was roughly woken the next morning by Sokka's angry accusations. "Katara, can you explain that?"

"What?" She asked groggily, rubbing her eyes. "Oh, him. Found 'im in the woods last night. Brought 'im back."

"Are you blind? Or just plain stupid?" Sokka raised his hands apologetically and mumbled, "Uh, no offense, Toph."

"None taken," the blind girl answered, cracking her knuckles. Sokka swallowed nervously.

"The point is, Katara," he continued, not taking his eyes off Toph. "What are we going to do with him?"

"We could make him our slave," Toph suggested hopefully. A little too hopefully, in Katara's opinion—what kind of slave was Toph suggesting, anyway? "Or we could sell him."

"Who would want him?" Aang asked, poking Katara's patient with a stick and conveniently blocking her view of him.

"The Fire Nation, duh," Toph answered matter-of-factly. "Of course, then they might catch us too..."

"Which would be bad," Sokka supplied helpfully. "All in favor of making him our slave, say aye. Aye!"

"Aye," Toph called cheerfully.

"Aye," Aang agreed.

Appa made a grunting sound that could have been called either way, but Sokka beat Katara to it. "Appa says aye! What say you, Katara?"

Just then, Aang moved away from the sleeping bag, and she got a clear view of exactly who she had rescued last night.

Zuko.

"Oh, gods."

"...I'll take that as an 'aye.'"

END.