ARC 3: A Mountain Divides Them Apart
DAY 15: Treasure
His stomach growls pitifully. The cut of his clothing is rough and itchy. He hates the color green and the overwhelming smell of dung and dirt and grass on the wind. The Earth Kingdom inches by and Zuko watches it all from the back of dinky cart (he hates it).
He should be grateful that a peasant farmer offered them a ride. Uncle has already promised a day's labor in return for this ride and a good meal. They will sleep safely tonight with full stomachs, they will repay it with honest labor. Zuko should be grateful, but nothing makes him more angry.
He's a prince. Or he was.
Was.
Now, he's a fugitive. If captured, he will be worth trunks of gold (though the sum is a fraction of what Uncle is worth) and shipped back to certain execution in the Fire Nation. Zuko has come so far and fallen so hard that three months later he's still reeling from the blow (he'll never go home again and somehow he can't comprehend that).
Uncle has it easier. He seems hardly concerned that a few months ago they were royalty and today he must work for measly meal. They're dirt poor and Zuko seems to be the only one worried. He has a feeling that Katara would be excellent at this. She would charm the farmer with silly anecdotes and smile over their lousy cooking pot at the end of the day. Her body would be warm against his at night, her hand soft against his when she soothed his worries away.
Zuko misses her (he won't admit it, but sometimes she haunts his dreams and the memory of blue eyes brings tears to his own).
He pulls out her hairpin…or what's left of it. Most of his things were left behind on his sister's ship (she'd insisted that Father wanted him home, only to pull the rug out from beneath his feet and declare him a traitor to the crown) and Katara's hairpins were greatly damaged in his battle with her. One was scorched badly, the other burnt right up to the painted turtle-duck. He wears the shorter one around his neck, a small hole bored through for a thin twine to run through. The hairpins are certainly no treasure, but they're the only things he has left of her and that makes them invaluable.
Uncle starts singing in the background. Zuko hastily covers his ears (it prevents some permanent scarring, but not all). The peasant farmer obviously enjoys it and joins in; Zuko tries to hum over the racket.
He doesn't realize, until much later, that he hums the silly song about two lovers that Katara had once taught him. His chest constricts and he forces himself to pull his hands away from his ears and listen to Uncle's ridiculous song.
In the end, it hurts less.
The Southern Water Tribe has not changed much in the three years that she's been gone. The tents still look the same and the people still wear the same haggard expressions at the end of the day. They still tell the same terrible jokes. Everything that has changed is internal, hidden away from strange eyes.
The most startling change, however, is right beneath her fingertips.
She's been home for two weeks and not once has she been able to muster up the courage to tell Gran-gran that she is with child. There have been weeks and months to come to terms with this development, but Katara can't admit her own indiscretions (she's doesn't know how to tell them that her child belongs to a Fire prince).
For the time being, she's hardly showing and the bump is all too easy to hide beneath her parka. It's easy to hide her morning sickness, attribute it to a lingering cold and exhaustion from travel (Gran-gran looks at her strangely, but says nothing). But she feels ridiculous; she's come home to give birth and yet she can't even admit it.
But it's easy enough to forget in all the commotion.
Her brother and grandfather arrive days after her, relaying orders to move the tribe north. Her father is somewhere along the south-western coasts of the Earth Kingdom, but he'd sent them specifically to escort his people north. Katara argues vehemently against it. She doesn't care that they're right, that the Northern Water Tribe is more isolated, is stronger. Sokka promises that they will return when the war ends, but Katara cannot leave the South. Will not leave the South.
She knows she should; the baby would be much safer in the North. But she can't make that decision. She's waiting for something.
She's not sure what or why, but there is an indisputable feeling that she needs to be here. Right now. Right here.
Something is going to happen. Something special. Something right.
Katara doesn't expect to find it waiting for her in the ice.