-Chapter 17- Don't Leave Me

"At least he gave me a smile, before he left me forever."

.

Injuries were few until Katara's fifth match. It took two weeks for her to fight for her fourth, which she won with only a slight hiccup. Her fifth match followed the next week; unlike her previous opponents, who had all been human, Katara now faced a tiger-ox. She recalled her first trip to the Arena when three men fought the two animals. Hazy, pleasant memories of childhood with Bai threatened to distract her, but the threat of death made it easy to refocus.

The other warriors were right about the animals. They were only out to kill. She knew not if they had been trained that way or if these animals just hated people, but it did not matter. She needed to win.

In some ways, it was easier to fight the tiger-ox. She had no qualms about killing it if need be, unlike when she faced other prisoners. The animal knew enough to be weary of the water trough, so she stayed close, using it to her advantage. Attack after long range attack, Katara realized that she was quickly tiring while the creature was not affected by the water she splashed at it. When it finally dove at her, she struggled to get the last of the water into an ice wall fast enough. The ice shattered as the tiger-ox bulldozed through it, swiping at her with its sharp claws, tearing through her clothing.

Katara called out in pain and fell backward to the ground, slamming her tailbone into the sand. The gash across her shoulder, coming just short of her chest, burned as if a blazing knife had slashed her skin. The tiger-ox circled back to finish her off, growling while he advanced.

Through the pain, Katara felt the water pooled where her right hand lay in the dirt. It took all her control not to focus on the bleeding wound, but instead on the killer animal. She was sure the guards would have loved to see her mauled after all the grief they had probably gotten from Zuko. She did not expect any intervention on their parts until they were sure she was a goner.

The animal nosed her knee, sniffing, barring its teeth. When it looked up, Katara swung her hand skyward, closing it into a fist, sending a spike of ice directly into the creature's eye. It howled in pain, rearing up on its hind legs- the oxen half of its body, giving the waterbender time to curl into a ball and roll out of the its way. The creature swiped at its eye, dislodging the ice ad leaving a gaping hole. It faced Katara as she stumbled to her feet.

The girl immediately fell into a defensive stance even without knowing where the rest of her water went. The position seemed to be enough for the one-eyed animal though. It turned tail and fled back to the doorway through with it entered. Katara nearly passed out in relief.

Two guards moved in and somehow managed to half-walk half-drag her out of the Arena. She walked through a real door, not just an arch, and realized she was not headed back underground to her cell; she was injured and thus, now stood in the doorway of Shiyu's Arena home. She could have smiled when she saw him, that is, if he did not have a look of horror etched onto his face alongside the wrinkles. Without a word, the guards escorted her to the stone table and left the doctor to his work.

"Shiyu, what's the-?" asked a new voice. Katara saw her vision begin to blur on the edges when the man entered the room and paused. This must be Shiyu's new apprentice. He seemed to not know how to deal with the situation when her gaping wound became apparent, or maybe it was because she was a girl and not the usual man. Either way, Shiyu snapped him out of it with his next order.

"Get some clean bandages Karo; she needs stitches," Shiyu explained. He laid Katara back on the table in silence. She watched him sterilize the needle with fire and pulled back the torn, bloodstained edges of her shirt over her shoulder. The first prick of the needle drove Katara to find a distraction. No wonder he had needed her to hold down his patients when he did this.

"I never thought I'd be the one being stitched up by you, Shiyu," Katara half laughed half winced. That got the medic to crack a small smile; it fell shortly after into a frown. After a moment of silence, he said,

"I never thought you'd end up in the arena, Katara. Were you a bender the whole time? And I just never noticed?" The other man, Karo, was silent through the exchange. No doubt he was trying to piece together the history between them. Katara remembered doing the same thing with Shiyu and Prince Iroh when she lived here. It felt like such a long time ago.

"I never told you," Katara stated. "I'm sorry." She wondered what ran through his mind, feeling his hands shake and the needle pause through her skin.

"I'm sorry if this is hard for you-" she tried to say.

"Katara," Shiyu interrupted. He tried to take a steadying breath, but the needle still shook. She felt him apply simple pressure to the gash, forgetting the stitching for moment.

"I'm glad you never told me. It was better that way. I would have had to pick between turning you in, as I was required to do, or keeping you and your bending a secret to protect the little girl I watched grow up." A long pause fell between them as he looked away for a moment. "I won't lie to you and say I would have kept your secret without hesitation."

The medic looked ashamed at his own admission. While it broke her heart to hear it, somewhere deep inside had always known better then to trust Shiyu with this most important secret of hers. Katara was glad she heeded that inner voice.

"Shiyu," Katara stated. "You don't need to keep stitching if you can't-"

"I'm not letting you die," the doctor interrupted. "You should know better than anyone that you'll bleed out if this wound isn't closed."

"I know, but you don't need to keep stitching, especially when you can't hold the needle without shaking. Just bring me some water." She took a steadying breath. Laying down had helped her vision stay clear for the time being.

"Karo," Shiyu ordered. The man presented Katara with a cup of water. Still on her back, Katara dipped her fingers in the water. Shiyu was silent as she touched her water laden fingers to the gash on her shoulder after pushing the blood-soaked cloth free.

She let the water glow with its soft healing light once it touched her skin instead of coaxing it to stay clear. Shiyu and his assistant both gasped as the wound closed before their eyes. Without being able to see it, Katara healed the wound by feeling.

After several silent minutes, she slowly sat up, the torn gash in her shirt revealing tender pink skin and no fresh blood. The two stitches Shiyu had managed to complete now marred her unblemished skin. She took a deep breath to quell her spinning head. She knew the effects of blood loss when she felt them.

"Amazing," was the first thing Shiyu said. He moved to cut the threads in her chest free. "When? How?"

"I learned I would do this- healing with my waterbending, here," Katara answered. "I practiced on myself until I could do it without the water glowing and then I used my powers on the fighters." Shiyu, though still in shock, nodded.

"You used this- this healing, on the Prince didn't you? After the Agni Kai?" Katara nodded, thinking to herself that it was more than just then. Zuko had received her healing touch on more than one occasion.

"This is a gift, Katara," he finally said. "No wonder you picked up my techniques so fast. Healing runs in your blood." He shook his head and put a hand on her uninjured shoulder. He had never done anything like it before, and Katara was caught off guard by the tenderness of the gesture. "I'm sorry you're forced to fight in the arena like the others. If I could, I would take you back in a second. But I can't-"

"It's alright Shiyu," Katara sighed. She gave him a smile and her best determined look. "I'll be back here before you know it." The guards seemed to have grown tired of waiting and wandered back inside. Shiyu gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, and he helped her off the table. The gesture reminded her of the time she saw Sokka and he had given her a warrior's parting when he left. She wondered if it was just a coincidence, or if Shiyu had remembered.

Seeing their fighter was still alive and well, the guards escorted the waterbender from the room. She glanced backward at Shiyu; he nodded once and gave her an encouraging grin. It was enough to keep her going even as the guards forced her back into her cell and left.

The others, especially her father, were happy she was still alive. She told them what had kept her after going over her match with them. Afterward, when the cells fell quiet, Katara sat alone in her thoughts, still smiling to herself when she thought to her growing number of supporters silently rooting for her to win her way to freedom.

...

Katara's sixth fight also was a new experience; she was paired up against a normal man in a mask and won easily. It was the first masked fight of the day, but even so, Katara expected it to be more difficult. She had not been able to see the man's face, but he had not appeared to be trying very hard to defeat her with his sword. He moved with a practiced ease, but he had definitely held back a few times.

Shiyu once told her why the masked men choose to fight in the Arena. The higher notion of honor was brought up, but because they hid behind a mask, Katara was not sure how they could regain their honor or even lose it. Even so, it did not make sense to fight in the Arena if you were not going to even try, honor or not. Katara voiced none of these thoughts aloud, she was content in her painless victory. It was one more match down.

Before the guards could take her back to her cell, she spotted another soldier running from the gate that the masked nobles emerged from, towards the staging area and prison doorway. He reached her guard and took a few deep breaths after the unexpected exercise.

"Another man requested her," the guard explained after a moment. "Don't take her back yet."

"Tell him to pick some other prisoner, they don't fight more than once a day. We have plenty of other waterbenders." The guard who held Katara's bicep explained. While the conversation was interesting, Katara did not want to appear overly interested in it in case they stopped talking about it because they knew she was listening. She was not aware that prisoners could be requested by the nobles.

Katara was under the assumption that they could ask for the number of fighters to be presented with but not by bending discipline or even specific people. Instead, she listened with half an ear while looking around the area they stood in. Along the wall four men waited, her father was among them. Katara knew none of the others. They waited where the prisoners passed time until they were ushered into the Arena. The guards always brought up the fighters several matches early, so everyone waited along the wall until they were ushered into the Arena. A man with a green sash was chosen from the group by a guard and brought in as the next match against a new masked fighter.

"We told him that," the guard explained. "He insisted he wanted to be the one to beat her streak. He was very convincing." The guard pulled out two silver coins from his breast pocket and passed them to the man holding onto Katara.

"Did he have any other requests?" The man asked, excepting the money with comment.

"He requested her specifically, and a single nonbender."

"Fine, tell him he's got it." The guard nodded and hurried off along the wall to stay away from the ongoing match. A nobleman fought against the nonbender man with a sword. Katara absentmindedly noticed that today was the day of swords, everyone seemed to use one if they were not a bender. This man did not have the same finesse as her own opponent, but he had double the strength.

They were well matched, until the nonbender reacted too slowly and the noble moved like an eagle-hawk to strike. The prisoner was lucky to escape serious injury, only a slice to his right arm. The crowd cheered and an announcement was made about the last match of the day.

"Number 94 into the center. Take the other two back," called the man who stood with Katara. She watched a guard force her father to stand and led him to where she waited. The other two men looked relieved as they vanished into the prison below, having not been chosen to fight.

Father and daughter were brought into the Arena. Hakoda selected as his weapon a long-bladed pike and the water troughs were refilled to the top to replace what had been used during the last waterbending match, Katara's own. She swallowed her fear and looked to her father once their opponent appeared. The man was maybe in his late twenties, still young enough to overestimate his own ability. Katara looked to the blade he carried.

"Ready Katara?" Hakoda asked, his eyes not leaving the noble in the smiling red mask. Katara only had time to nod before they were under attack. The fire blast sent them darting apart to avoid it. Katara called water to her while her father charged. He feinted, trying to get the bender off balance and keep his attention away from her. It was not completely successful.

Her water shield sizzled when the flames struck it. Steal blades clanged as the bender's sword blocked her father's blade. Katara threw a stream of water between them, trying to knock the man's sword from his hand. He jumped away, his grip still tight on the hilt. The forgotten water pooled on the sand as Katara darted to her father's side.

Before she reached him, the opponent charged. She blocked the fire blast with ice but yelped and fell backward when his sword sliced right through the wall like butter. Shards of ice bounced off her hands as she tried to block her face, though she could feel some pieces graze her checks and forehead. They were shallow cuts; she hardly noticed them.

"Katara move!" Her father shouted. He appeared over her and blocked the sword's downward stroke with the wooden shaft of the pike. The sword bit deep with the dull thud; Hakoda twisted the weapon from his opponent's hands and threw both the sword and pike out of reach. He stood between the man and Katara, suddenly defenseless. The mask noble though, was not out of weapons. Katara rolled to her knees and thrust her hands forward just as the bender moved to attack her father. The jet of water barreled into him from the side and sent him flying.

Hakoda pulled Katara to her feet and they both turned to face the nobleman. He skidded near the fallen weapons, unwedged his sword from the pike, kicked the broken weapon aside, and leveled the blade in their direction. He advanced slowly, moving to circle them. Before Hakoda could get between the enemy and his daughter again, Katara stopped him.

"Dad," she stated, about to say more but paused mid thought. She knew he knew that he could not win this fight without the pike. Against a man with only a sword, maybe, but not a bender with the same weapon.

Katara did not have time to tell him to get behind her; a furious blast of flames bombarded them. They dove to each side. Katara felt the hungry flames lick at her skin, catching the ragged ends of her tunic sleeves on fire. She hurriedly swatted them out.

The nobleman focused his sword on Hakoda. Fearful for her father's life, Katara raced towards the firebender, streams of water following after her. Hakoda rolled, grabbing up the bladed end of his broken weapon as he did and hopping to his feet, ready to defend himself. He blocked the sword just in time, but that was all his weapon was good for. Katara directed a water whip at the firebender, but he saw it from the corner of his eye and spun to slice at it with this sword. Amazingly, the water lost its shape when the sword broke the surface tension and splashed everywhere. Katara hesitated in her confusion.

She had never seen that happen before, her water falling apart when it came into contact with another weapon. Though, no one had ever attacked her bending with a physical weapon either. A pained shout broke the silence of her thoughts. She saw her father fall backwards with his arms crossed in front of his face, his left sleeve on fire. She could smell burning hair and lifted the fallen water at her feet, sending it flying at the firebender. With a twist of her wrist, it hardened into spears of ice. A fire blast and quick sword work protected the man from all but two of the icicles. One sliced through the fabric at his chest and another shattered into his thigh.

The rage in the nobleman's eyes burned like the flames engulfing his fists. Katara retreated to the barrel of water, dodging hastily thrown flames each step. She figured she would buy her father some time with the nobleman focused on her. Glancing to him, she saw her father on his knees, looking at his hands, shaking. She could see the red burns on her father's forearms from where she stood. They looked bad. No wonder she could smell the acidic odor of burned skin from here.

Gritting her teeth, Katara attacked the firebender with more ice. It seemed more resilient to flames and she would make him pay for what he did to her father. Both feeding off their anger at the other, they traded blows, circling. After a particularly fierce fire blast, Katara tumbled to the ground. She shook loose hair from her face, her braid had long since fallen free.

She struggled to her feet, looking back at the water trough to see only the smallest amount left. Glancing forward at the noble, Katara watched her life flash before her eyes. He almost moved in slow motion as he jumped at her, spinning to increase his own momentum. The gleaming edge of his sword was aimed to slice at her neck, a clear shot would mean her decapitation. In what she thought were her last moments, Katara aimlessly wondered why he was so angry at her to go for a killing blow.

And then, when the sword made contract, it did not matter anymore. Blood flew, but it was not hers. Blue eyes widened in shock, almost not comprehending what just happened before her eyes. But her body reacted anyway, even if her mind had not caught up. The little remaining water left, froze into a blade in her hand. Tears filling her eyes, she dove at the noble and stabbed him with the weapon in the soft spot below his collarbone, between the joint of his shoulder and rib cage. The nobleman screamed out in pain and dropped his sword. The match was called when he dropped to his knees and stared at the melting ice jammed in his chest, screaming, leaving Katara standing over him.

The waterbender left him to his meltdown and turned. Blood covered the ground around the body. She had no words as she threw herself down in the sand and dirt beside her father. Her hands shook, but she took his in her own. When he did not flinch at the contact with the burnt skin, she knew he had gone into shock. The damage was severe.

"Katara," Hakoda whispered. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. The girl shook as silent sobs racked her body. Hot tears threatened to blur her vision. Her father's face went fuzzy, but even that did not change the fact that she had seen the wound the sword had dealt. She had watched her father step in front of the killing attack aimed at her, but he stood taller than her, and the swing aimed at her neck met him lower, slicing down into his shoulder and collarbone. The artery that she had learned to take a pulse from was severed, the wound was deep. She could see his bone through the slice on his shoulder. Her father's eyelids fluttered.

"Dad," Katara cried. She was vaguely aware of the guards around her. The crowd in the stands had fallen silent, or perhaps she had simply tuned them out. She did not care. Her father smiled up at her; she felt him try to give her hands a squeeze. There was no strength left in his grip. Her father, the man who had lifted her up to toss her into fresh piles of snow, no longer had the strength to even hold her hands.

"Katara," he said again. She could see him fighting to stay conscious, to focus on her eyes. "I'm so proud of you, Katara," he managed to say. She pushed the hair from his eyes. Biting her lip, she tried to smile, to be brave for him. This was not how she wanted her father to go, cut down in the middle of the Arena.

"I'm sorry I won't-" he gasped, "be here to see you win." He choked, spitting blood from his mouth.

"Shh," Katara coaxed, her tears dotted his grey clothing, mixing with blood from his wounds. She desperately wanted to save him, to heal him and show him that she could win like he believed she could, but she had no more water. She had used the last it to win the match.

Deep down, she knew all the healing water in the world would not save her father now; it was too late. Even he seemed to know it. He held onto life now only to deliver his final words. She kept a steady grip on his hands, feeling them grow cool under the scorching burn that covered them.

"You've done so well. You and Sokka. You've both made me so proud. Tell him that for me."

"Of course Dad, anything." She closed her eyes, letting her tears fall without shame.

"I love you Daddy," she smiled, voice cracking. Hakoda met her gaze and closed his eyes. He gave her a smile.

"I love you too Katara," he stated. He struggled to draw a new breath. As much as his body insisted, he struggled to stay with her, bleeding out on the Arena floor. It pained Katara more then she realized. She leaned in and lay her forehead on his.

"You can let go now," she whispered. She paused for a moment then added. "Say hi to Mom and GranGran for me, ok?" With her permission, her father exhaled one last time and lay still. Katara's sobs gained a voice. If she had cared, she was certain the whole Arena could hear her anguish.

The guards pulled her from her father's body, their patience worn thin, and dragged her back to her cell. She was hysterical the entire way.

Even in her cell, nothing anyone said could calm her. It did not take long for the others to guess the cause of her grief. Hakoda's cellmates noticed his absence and spread the news. The block let her cry without complaint. They all knew the loss of a loved one was hard. Her sobs continued through the night and only eased when she fell asleep at dawn.

(Original Author's Note)

Shiyu gets some last minute characterization and Katara's winning streak hits a major road bump.

Late update, shorter chapter... kinda. Sorry guys. It was Thanksgiving and all...

Though, I'm sure everyone is going to enjoy the next chapter (*crosses fingers*) since its from the POV of someone you've all been requesting...

*The chapter title is from 'Please Don't Go' by Mike Posner*