Three: Nighttime
"My uncle will be coming for me soon," Zuko said confidently. They were both sitting on the beach they'd found themselves washed up on, quite a distance apart from each other.
"Aang and my brother will be coming for me soon," Katara replied, with just as much, if not more, self-assurance in her voice. The sun was setting, a red glow lighting the sea afire as the tide steadily dropped away.
Zuko cast her a withering look. "My uncle is probably incredibly worried about me. He's most likely already searching for my whereabouts."
Katara tilted her nose haughtily into the air. "Aang and Sokka were searching for me the minute they found out I was lost."
"My uncle's probably pushing my ship at top speed now. It can cover extremely large distances when at full power."
"A flying bison," she paused for dramatic effect, "is an incredibly fast-moving animal. Appa could beat a wimpy toy boat any day of the week-"
"Toy boat?"
"Yeah, that's what I said, a wimpy toy boat-"
"As if that furry behemoth of yours could ever compare to my-"
"You're just scared, and you know it-"
"OW!"
Katara glanced up as Zuko snatched his hand back from the scuttling advances of a three-eyed crab. He grimaced at his throbbing fingers, and standing up, angrily kicked the crab back towards the receding waves.
Darting forward, Katara scooped up the dazed crab by picking it up from behind, avoiding the sharp claws that had caused Zuko so much pain.
"What are you doing?" he asked, trying to move his fingers without wincing.
"This," she raised the wiggling crab high in the air, and felt a tiny bit of malicious satisfaction as the Prince recoiled slightly, "is a very high source of protein and extremely tasty if steamed just the right way."
----
Zuko watched silently from the edge of the clearing as Katara scuttled back and forth, piling up fallen branches and dry leaves at the center. The crab, which she had stoned to death earlier, lay on a rock near the edge of the heap.
She finished, eyeing her work with obvious satisfaction while brushing her hands off.
"Now all we need is some fire," she said.
Zuko gave her a blank look.
"Well?" she prodded.
"Well what?" he asked, playing along.
The Water tribe girl placed her hands on her hips angrily. "Are you a Firebender or not?"
The Prince smirked. "Say please."
She gaped at him. "What?"
"Etiquette and polite manners are the representatives of a civilized person," he said, obviously enjoying himself. "Now say it."
Katara gave him a look, a look of such rage and hatred that Zuko considered taking back his words for the briefest of moments.
But only the briefest.
They stood there, facing each other, her arms crossed over her chest, his smirk planted firmly on his face.
Then she uncrossed her arms, lifted the sides of her blue robe, and sank in a graceful mockery of a lady's curtsy, all the while her eyes fixated on his face. "Please."
And somehow, she had managed to turn the entire situation around, and he ended up feeling like the one being humilliated.
"Good enough," he snapped, before lettting loose a burst of flame that was perhaps a bit larger and more forceful than necessary. He felt his smirk grow as she leapt back from the fire, clearly disturbed by the intensity of it all.
Giving him a wary look, she bent down and gingerly prodded the crab into the fire with a stick.
He wondered what would happen if he picked up a stick and attempted to push her into the fire.
Annoying little twit.
----
Katara licked her slightly burned fingers when she finished with the crab, sighing happily. Seafood was her favorite. Pushing through the remains of her meal to see if she had missed any bits, she valiantly tried to ignore the disconcerting gaze of the golden-eyed Prince sitting across the fire from her. His constant stare was at first annoying, then disturbing.
He had refused her offer to share the crab with him.
Fine, she'd thought to herself. More for me. He can starve to death for all I care.
The Prince muttered something she didn't quite catch.
"What was that?" she asked.
He muttered it again.
"What?"
"I said, I called you a barbarian," he retorted, finally speaking up.
She was surprised at first, then shook it off. "At least I have the brains to know that food is necessary to my survival."
He rolled his eyes. How immature.
"And when you," she continued, pushing an empty crab claw aside, "are going insane from starvation, and come crawling to me, frothing at the mouth, pleading and begging for food, who's going to be the barbarian then?"
"I'll die before I beg you for anything," he snapped back.
"We'll see," she said. "We'll see."
----
Night had fully descended, cloaking the small forest on the island in darkness. Settling down with his back to the fire, Zuko hoped to Agni that his uncle would come tomorrow. If he spent one more day with this insane Waterbender girl, he would go berserk.
Grunting as he lay down on a hard rock, he yanked it out from under him and threw it over his shoulder. He heard it land somewhere in the leafy bushes.
"Watch where you're throwing things," came her voice from the other side of the slowly dying fire. "You almost gave me a concussion there."
He gritted his teeth and said nothing. Why, oh why couldn't he have actually hit her head and given her an actual reason to nag at him? Even better, knock her out for a few hours; it would keep her mouth shut.
Please come, he begged his uncle silently. Please come and deliver me from this.
----
Katara wiggled on the ground, trying to get into a comfortable position. With the coming of night, the air had gotten steadily chillier and chillier. The fire had plenty of warmth, but it frightened her, being so close to it. She'd rather put up with the cold than risk being burned alive.
But, oh, it was cold. She had no sleeping bag, no warm fur coat. Just her thin robe.
There's always body heat, a small voice in her head reminded her of the lessons her old tribe had taught her in order to prevent freezing to death. Get people to sleep together in extreme cold, and you'd keep each other alive by merely emitting warmth.
That Prince probably had body heat to spare-
Katara caught the thought as it began to form in her mind.
Prince Zuko?
Sharing body heat?
Haha.
Ha.
Ha.
A/N: Hopefully they were both more in character this chapter. Maybe three of you mentioned Katara's "language" in the last one, and I'm sorry. It is bad writing when I let my own vulgarity show through and affect the characters.
Chapter 15 of LTE is halfway done. I wrote chapter three of this story on the bus home from school; that's why it came up so fast. I'm glad you're liking it.