Chapter Three
Katara rested, thought and talked a bit to Hito for the rest of the day. Once Zuko had left she had zoned out in her thoughts. The questions just kept re-running in her head and then a few more would pop up and wouldn't leave too. Where am I going to be taken tomorrow? The prison? Do they even have a prison on this ship? What will happen when I get better? Will Zuko hurt me then? Would he? How many people havs he killed? Would he kill Aang or just capture him? Where is Aang? Is he still in the forest? Is he and the others searching for me? What about Appa?
At one point she had rolled up the shirt that had been put on her, to see the injury. She shuddered at the thought about who exactly put on her new clean clothes for her- hopefully a woman, but she didn't think many women were on the ship- if any. It looked as if someone had stitched the side of her stomach, it was nicely done. She traced her hand slightly over the cut.
"Your lucky," Hito looked up at her, "the knife didn't hit any major organs, just tissue and muscle- but there was lots of blood."
Katara was startled when Hito spoke. She knew someone had come in the room to tell him he had permission to talk to her but he hadn't till now. She nodded and didn't know what exactly to say. She decided to ask one of the questions that were lingering in her head like the others.
"Who carried me from outside and onto the ship?" She wished it wasn't Zuko, one of his guards would be fine or someone they made on the streets carry her.
"Prince Zuko carried you himself," he watched her sigh and roll her eyes, he chuckled to himself, "his upper body was covered in blood by the time he got you up here and already had the finest doctors on the ship by his side awaiting orders. Of course I had to be kicked out while this was happening."
"Oh, I'm sorry- I didn't mean to take your room-"
Hito held up his hand and smiled at her, "Its ok, you need it much more than I do. And I'm getting back the room tomorrow anyways."
Katara smiled. But once he had reminded her about her moving into another room tomorrow it made her worry.
"Hito, would you know where Zuko would put me tomorrow?" she shifted in the bed, she help her look at Hito more comfortably.
"No, I'm sorry but I don't know where Prince Zuko would place you, there's not many open rooms here on the main ship," Katara could tell he was telling the truth, he had no clue where he would take her.
"There are more ships?" Katara asked.
"Yes, six are accompanying the Prince," he nodded and looked at her, scratching his head.
Six? How many ships do you need? Her mouth hanged open. Hito must have noticed her shock because he said, "He is the Prince of The Fire Nation, derserves the best… even though he's banished.
Katara looked at him, when he said the last few words he wished he never said them. Katara let it slide, she knew Zuko was banished at that it had something to do with his father but ahe didn't know the whole story behind it.
"So do you think he would put me on one of those ships?"
"Highly unlikely," he stood up and walked over to the table and picked up a jar which was filled with a greenish yellow paste "I need to apply the medicine to your cut, so no further infection gets to it."
She nodded her head and rolled her shirt half way up, she felt a little uncomfortable about but knew it had to be done. She felt the cold substance slide over skin. After he was done he took a large bandage and put it over her stitches.
He walked over and cleaned his hands in a bucket of water that had been put there for that reason.
"Thank you," she said as he walked over to his chair.
"No problem, I'll do anything to help out a miss like you," he smiled at her.
After that they slowly stopped talking and Katara fell asleep a short while after.
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Zuko sat in the planning room with his Uncle. It was one of the rooms that was close by and unocuppiod at the moment. Zuko and Iroh had sat in silence for the first five minutes, but Zuko got sick of the silence and sighed.
"Uncle, I have no place to put the girl," he put his elbows down on the table and looked at his uncle from across the table, "the rooms we have are already occupied- and she cant stay with them, for obvious reasons, she cant go onto the other ships because I want to be able to see her anytime of the day and know what she's up to, and we cant put her in the prison because of her injury."
Iroh looked at him and nodded his head, "I see your situation."
Zuko stared at him, "That's it? Aren't you going to say one of your pointless saying's that, shockingly, give me some idea what to do?" he was annoyed, out of all the times in the world he picked this one to say nothing.
Iroh gave a small laugh, "If there so pointless, Zuko, why do you ask me to say them?" he smiled at his annoyed nephew, "all I can think of is for you to put her… in your bedroom."
"What?!" Zuko rose in his chair, "You are crazy. You honestly think I should put her in my bedroom," his uncle nodded, "and were do I sleep?"
"Your bedroom, like every other night," his uncle said, bringing his hand up to his beard and stroking it.
"And how do you think that's going to work? One bed- there's no possible way I'm sleeping with her in the same bed," how could his uncle suggest them both sleep in the same bed. For crying out loud!
"You have the couch," his uncle suggested.
"The couch wasn't supposed to be slept on, it was supposed to be sat on. Even if she was to sleep on it, it wouldn't be so great on her injury," he looked at his uncle, Iroh was about to open his mouth to day something when Zuko said, "and I'm not sleeping on it!"
Iroh closed his mouth. "Well you don't really have any other choice, nephew," he stood up and walked around the table to meet his nephew.
Zuko sighed, "I know. She wont be to happy about it."
Iroh nodded, "she'll probably put up a good fight about it."
"That's what I'm dreading most, she'll probably start screaming and then everyone on the boat will think Im murdering her."
"Yes they will," Iroh chuckled and gave him a pat on the back.
"I'm going to think about it- see if there are anyways around this," Zuko headed for the door to go to his bedroom and think about this. If he was lucky something would come to him in his dreams.
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Soooo what did you guys think?! Hit the purple button NOW! And reply. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and replying to my story. Chapter 4 will be up and will be longer than 1,2, and 3 (I think).