Katara came to slowly, head pounding and vision spotty. She groaned, trying to reach a hand up to her aching head, only to find her arms bound. She paused, feeling out her situation. Something hard against her back, she waa tied to it with rough rope. Her heart began to pound. What is going on?

"Ohhh, she's awake!" An excited male voice made Katara's head turn sharply.

"What..." She croaked, throat so dry she began to hack.

"Shut up, girl." The voice snarled. A man stepped in front of her, towering but shadowed in the dim light. "You better hope the King throws in the ransom."

"Ransom?!" She croaked. "You kidnapped me?

"Who better than a woman he holds a fondness for?" The man chortled.

"Who are you?!" Katara cried, straining against her binds.

"You don't need to know. You just better hope, or we're disposing of you, girl." She saw a flash of teeth as the man smiled, more akin to a sneer.

Oh Gods, she was in trouble.

"I haven't even seen Zuko in years!" Katara protested, voice a bit stronger.

"But your little play fight the other night told us all we need to know." The man had a dark, rich voice and it gave Katara chills. "The King and some peasant from a Water Tribe? Scandalous! Kidnapped? More scandalous! Either the King shows and dies, or he gives us the money and we might let you go."

"Might?"

"You're pretty and feisty. Fun to... break." He leered. Katara felt panic rising like bile in her throat, sweat beading on her forehead. He would come... right? "Getting scared?" The man taunted. Katara stared towards him, cerulean eyes narrow, but she remained tight lipped.

He slapped her. Hard. Her head rocked backwards, smacking into the beam she was tied to, stars lighting up her vision. Katara spat on him defiantly.

He growled, an enraged and inhuman sound, before striking her face again. His fist connected with her eye and Katara cried out involuntarily.

"Oh girly, we are gonna break you." He snarled. Katara sneered back, desperately holding on to her defiance despite her pounding heart and building fear.

"No the fuck you are not." The voice came from behind the man, familiar and rough. "You will let her go or by the gods I will kill you." Katara couldn't see him, but she knew his voice- Zuko.

"Try me." The man shot back, crouching inti a fighting gesture. Zuko grunted, and Katara knew that stubborn grin she remembered so well was on his face.

"Gladly." The Firebender snarled, flames bursting to life in his outstretched hands. The fire illuminated his face, smirk plastered on and stare intense. It cast flickering, eerie shadows that danced along the walls and the beams, slightly illuminating a concrete floor and tarnished, worn-down walls.

The fire erupted, whooshing in her ears with a deafening roar. They seemed to engulf her kidnapper, but he snarled like a feral Boar-Q-Pine and charged Zuko. It was clear that the man was far more broad and much taller than the King, but Zuko used his smaller size to dodge out of the way of the man.

He misjudged his step slightly, the man's fist connecting with the side of his head. Stars blurred his vision as the sharp pain shot through his head. Zuko growled, wheeling around slightly unsteadily and barraged the man with a wave of fire.

The kidnapper wasn't a bender, Katara realised with a start. Yet he charged through Zuko's flames as if he felt nothing of the blazing heat.

He slammed Zuko to the ground with the ease of someone swatting a fly away. The Firebender's breath was knocked out of him, forcing a weak cough as he stood again, wildly charging the man with flames engulfing his arms. Despite being smaller, Zuko connected with the man's midsection with all of his weight and momentum, knocking both of them backwards in separate ways. Zuko recovered, quickly bursting white-hot flames from his fingertips towards the ceiling. One of the horizontal beams made a cracking noise as the flames ate at the wood viciously, making quick work of them.

After a moment, with a mighty cracking noise, the beam began to collapse. Burning chunks of wood fell over the man, the light allowing Katara to see his face. He was pale, much like Zuko, with dark hair but blue eyes. Fire Nation but... not quite. His eyes were wild, like a caged animal, as his flesh began to burn and the smell of cooking meat started to permeate the air.

Zuko turned to a still bound Katara, leaping towards her to deftly untie her and yank her up to a standing position. Katara cried out as blood rushed back through her arms and legs.

"Come on, we have no time to waste!" Zuko hissed, yanking Katara along by her arms. The building made this awful creaking noise, almost a groan, as the fire devoured the wood and the house began to collapse in around itself. She watched as Zuko tried to control the flames, but it wasburning through the house like it was made of the perfect kindling. Master Bender or not, this was too large to entirely control, and it had burst out of Zuko's control.

He stumbled out the door behind her, covered in soot and bruises. "Are you okay?" Zuko asked. Katara furrowed her brows.

"Yes... but what in the gods was that, Zuko?!"

"Now! Go!" Zuko screamed, snatching Katara to the front of him and shoving her towards the exit. She fumbled against the handle for a minute but ultimately shoved her way out the door, Zuko stumbling out behind her while trying desperately to bend the flames to his will.

But they grew too massive, too fast to be controlled, even by a master bender like Zuko.

Katara coughed from the thick smoke she had inhaled, and Zuko stared at her before sweeping her up into a hug.

"I am sorry that happened."