hello my loves! sorry I've been so late in updating, life kind of got in the way haha. I've had a busy semester at school, between papers and tests and various meetings!

anyways, I hope yall like this chapter! please be sure to leave a review, you know how much I love those!

as always, big hugs and love to the people who reviewed my last chapter: Aaliyah92, storyoftheunknownfangirl, InconsciousSin, Guest, Symphonic Madness, & Mzspurrs15!

xoxo,

nightfall26

"Promise. I'll always be here."

Why weren't you here?

I screamed your name.

I begged for you.

You promised.

Why didn't you come?

zuko.

I had some trouble agreeing to wait a day before we went after Katara. Part of me was ready to fire up, to strap myself into armor and to board a ship right now to rip apart the people who had wronged the waterbender. But the poison that had rested in my wounds made it nearly impossible for me to get to my feet, let alone fight.

So here I sat, staring at the floorboards beneath my bare feet, tracing the grains of wood with my eyes. Since the day I'd seen her, I'd been fighting for her. Since the very first moment I'd let my gaze rest on those blue eyes of hers, I'd been sold. My soul was hers, my heart was hers, and I was dying. Physically, I ached, the wounds burning a little from the rubbing alcohol the healer had poured onto them just a few minutes earlier. But my chest hurt too, a strange hollowness throbbing through the emptiness in my ribcage.

I didn't understand anything that had happened in the past few days. I'd been rolling in the bliss of returned love, of having the girl I'd dreamed of lying beside me at night and warming my mornings with smiles and reminders that she was mine. She'd slipped through my hands like the waves that lapped against the shore. I'd let her go. I'd held her in my arms, held her hands in mine, and watched helplessly as she faded away into the grip of evil that I didn't understand anymore.

Where had this come from? Azula, my only sibling, had wanted the throne with such a burning passion that she'd exacted a bitter war against me and the rest of the Avatar's companions from day one. But now it felt personal. She'd set up a doppleganger- how did she find someone that looked like her?- and imprisoned the one thing that meant something to me. She'd ripped my happiness from me, challenging me and me alone, and was now luring me away from my Nation.

There had to be some sort of plan in the works, something to draw me away from the throne so she could swoop in and take over. Katara was bait. She had to be. There was no other reason for stealing her away, no reason for dragging her from me.

I knew my Uncle was right about Azula setting a trap for me. I knew it with a deadness in my being, a pain that made me feel twice as useless.

"Zuko." The voice made me start a little, my limbs twitching in surprise at the Avatar's entrance into my darkened room. The candles about the room burst into sudden flame, and he pulled a chair up to me with a grim expression. I was bent, my hands clasped, my elbows resting on my knees.

"What have you found out?" I asked, slowly, the words cracking through chapped lips. I'd been alone for the greater part of today. Aang had volunteered to go with Toph on a mission through the town, helping those they could and seeking information about the strange army that had risen from the fog that rolled off the sea. Dark circles rimmed the boy's eyes, and I realized all at once how hard this had been on him.

He'd been planning on marrying Katara a year ago, and now, his world had been rocked beyond what he could tackle. Being forced into the role of a man much more mature than he was, he was struggling to adjust and to deliver results. I could see the battle in his once-youthful eyes, the harshness of adulthood fading the naive stare of a child that had once widened his gaze. Aang rubbed his hand over his head in a long, tired motion, and I noticed his clothes were a little singed. It must have been an interesting morning for him.

"There was some kind of underground training facility that had been set up once you took the throne. It was started by a man named Darin, who is rumored to be a new breed of Fire Bender. He was taking in street rats and various villagers that wanted you exiled again- and obviously, training them in lethal combat for some sort of battle. We ran into a few of them lingering around the edges of town, and once they figured out we were snooping, chased us through town until Toph managed to trap them." The information made my stomach churn in horror, but I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and rocked back in my chair. Attempting to stay stoic, I kept my face as smooth and unresponsive as I could manage.

"Are they still alive?" I knew killing was against what Aang believed in, but when his head shook wearily to the side, I could see how aged he seemed. Toph must have crushed them.

"We got into their facility for a few minutes, and-" Aang choked on the word a little, emotion sticking in his throat as he dragged his hands across his thighs. I raised my eyebrow at him, asking for him to continue without words.

"They had all these drawings of us up on a board in their main hall, with our names, our information. They knew so much about us, where we come from, what our pasts are, what kind of skills we have, it was really, really strange." Tilting his head to the side, away from me, he looked like he was forcing back tears before he managed to continue with his report.

"The worst part, though, was how many pictures there were of Katara. It was so disturbing. Some of them were stuck to the wall with knives. There was one picture of her in chains, and a diagram underneath that explained the significance of them. They drain bending, Zuko, they're going to drain her life-force slowly until she dies. She's got days to live." As the last few words escaped his mouth, he dropped his face into his hands, his shoulders quivering with the obvious signs of crying. I wasn't sure how to react in that moment.

Days.

My beautiful girl, that vivacious, alive woman that had brought me back from the dead, had mere days until her life was over.

"We're going tonight." I said shortly, my jaw clenching, not caring that the flames on the candles around me roared to a new life. Aang's head shot up, out of his hands, and the trails of tears that stained his cheeks made me wish that my sister had never been born.

"Tonight?" He echoed, surprised.

"We'll have the rest of my army come early in the morning, along with Sokka, Suki, and Toph, but I'm going to get Katara tonight. There is no way in hell that I'm letting her die while I'm still breathing."

"Zuko, you know it's a trap-"

"I know it's a damn trap, Aang, don't give me that shit." I shoved myself to my feet, the force sending the wooden chair I'd perched on clattering to the floor.

"Katara is the woman I love, and without her, I'm nothing. I can't rule this Nation without her. I can barely breathe without her. You know how this feels, Avatar, so don't stand there and preach." I spat the words as viciously as I could manage, throwing back the curtains that hung heavily over my windows to reveal the simmering light of the late afternoon. The silence from behind me emphasized how quickly my heart was beating and how unsteady I felt.

"I'm going with you." The thin voice of the boy behind me made me turn, my face furrowed with confusion and shock.

"Aang, no, you can't-"

"Don't preach, Zuko." He said morosely, his hands falling to his sides and hanging there with a defeatedness that echoed in his eyes. A wry smile twisted his thin mouth. I chuckled, once, darkly, eyeing the Avatar.

"Touche." I rubbed my hands through my hair, the ache in my muscles not nearly as sharp as it was the night before.

"I'm going to meditate and spar, so I'll be down at my training rooms for a little while. Tell everyone that you're going to survey the area tonight and for them to proceed as planned- don't mention that I'm coming, they'll all throw a fit." I said lightly, shrugging on a shirt and reaching for my water glass before downing it.

"Alright. I'll try to get some kind of plan together, too. If we're a little prepared, we should last a little while longer." The sardonic response from the boy caught me off guard, and I sighed at the deadness in his tone and the harsh reality it posed.

"We'll get her home or die trying." I murmured, softly, turning to Aang with my hand extended. He nodded curtly, gripping my hand with severity before turning away to attend to his half of the bargain.

The healer that had come to the palace had worked on my lightening scar as well, and overall, I felt much lighter than I had hours before. She'd cautioned me against strenuous activity, but I supposed that as long as my muscles were supple and warmed up, I should be fine.

All I needed was pure adrenaline, at this point. It would be a short rescue attempt without it.

katara.

Hours had passed.

Had it been hours? Or days? I didn't know any more. I was chained down to the ground like an animal, my clothes in rags, burns and bruises marring my skin like paint. I stared listlessly into the vast expanse of emptiness beyond my gaze, my eyes scraping along the wooden floorboards beside me. There were so many imperfections on the surface, scratches, splinters that had risen from the deep rivets that the boots of the soldiers had caused. I let my fingers play with the circle of a knot in the wood, feeling the smoothness of the polished wood that must have once shone like the glimmering surface of the still ocean at night.

This place had been a home, once. Not just to myself, Zuko, and the rest of our ramshackle gang, but to children and servants of the royal family. I wondered how many times someone had laughed in this room, or cried, or whispered soft words of love to another human.

I wondered what things these walls had seen and almost laughed at the idea that they'd never seen a girl chained down before.

At least, I hoped not.

There was an ache from between my legs that constantly reminded me that something inside me was broken. I'd bled, painfully, even though it hadn't been my first time. Zuko had been my first- and I'd thought of him endlessly afterwards, tears slipping from my eyes to pool on the floor beneath me. I pictured the callouses on his palms, the dip of his throat and the firmness of his arms. I'd imagined how warm his body was in the chill of the night, how soft his touch had been, how loved I'd felt.

But once I'd been dragged to this room, not even my fading memories of Zuko could keep me fighting against them. I'd almost lost all of my energy by this point.

Somehow, I could feel something else leaving me, too, and I realized that Mai hadn't been playing around. My spirit energy was draining. Slowly, painfully, I was dying. I'd refused the concept of death for the last several lonely hours, denying that I didn't have anything left in me that could get me out of this mess.

I was almost glad that Zuko hadn't come for me. I loved him too much to see him die. I loved the red, puckered marks of his scar, the ridges of the flesh that made him the man he'd become. I loved every last inch of him with a painful finality that made me want to scream my desperation to the sky.

Would he replace me?

Selfishly, I didn't want him to- but another voice, deep inside my heart, wanted him to love again. He deserved happiness. He deserved the world, in actuality, and so I let my hands stop wandering across the silkiness of the floorboards that reminded me of the wooden floors in his bedroom.

Zuko deserved more than this war. He deserved a world without pain, without tumult. I knew he'd rule his people graciously and beautifully, leading them to a world where war wouldn't corrupt the peace that Aang would so effortlessly enforce. Blinking back tears, I pictured the faces of the people I loved.

Toph, the girl with the armor that was strapped to her with an iron certainty, would grow into a woman that would bring both smiles and fear to peoples heart. She would ease Aang's suffering, I knew, I'd seen how focused she'd been on him for a long time now. The lingering way her fingers clasped his tunic, the soft way her lips pressed together when he entered her space.

Aang would find joy in her jokes, her humor, the way she viewed the world with a sarcastic- and yet ever optimistic- eye.

Suki would find her place in the tribe. There was no question about this, she was too lovable not to adjust nicely to the people that had cared for me my whole life. Gran-gran would help her fall into place. She'd ease her fears, help her through the harrowing tasks that entering the tribe occasionally brought about. Sokka would carve a beautiful marriage token for her and he'd speak words of loyalty and trust to her on their wedding day.

Sokka, my older brother that had always felt like my kid brother instead, would grow into our father's shoes as chief to stand tall and proud at the head of our tribe.

I'd regret not seeing the children they would raise, but I was certain that they would be beautiful. They would smile at the rise of the moon and play in the snow and laugh because life was a game. They'd have the childhood that none of us had been privileged enough to experience, the freedom that none of us knew.

That was the way it was supposed to be.

I let my chapped lips part, whispering quietly to myself.

"I love you all so much." I said, the words thinner than spidersilk in the quiet of the room around me. The answering silence spoke to me, letting the memories of the life I'd had wash over me in waves of thankfulness. My friends had grown so much already, and they would continue to do so, in a world free of pain and nonsense. I had wanted to care for them until the day I died. But in reality, it was time to let them go.

It was time to let Zuko go, to let my friends go, to let them all vanish into the mists that rolled off the ocean tide in the morning.

I could feel the pain in my heart loosening as I thought of them, as I felt the love that they all held for me surrounding me in an embrace that made me feel like I was home again. I was in Zuko's arms again, I was encased in laughter, in love, looking around me at the smiles of my friends and knowing that there was no safer place in the world for me.

And so, in that moment, I let my eyes slide closed.

In that moment, that quivering, tremulous moment, I let my mind drop from the precipice.

I let it all go- the pain, the wrong that had been done to me, the burns, the bruises, the assault. I let the suffering slip from my fingers, I let my toes uncurl and my muscles relax.

I pictured the face of the man I loved one last time, remembering how it had felt to skim my fingertips across his face, his lips, his jaw- and then, I released him.

I let him go.

I let it all go, and sank into the blackness of the water in my mind, allowing it to close over my head and silence my thoughts.

zuko.

I'd meditated for some time after stretching, allowing my muscles to fall back into the careful routine of my various bending forms. I'd toyed with my swords some, letting the moves flow through me like water, adjusting to the slow ache of pain in my abdomen and appendages like the ripples on the surface of a lake.

I remembered how evenly Katara had moved, how the careful sway of her arms and torso had kept her moves from becoming too choppy and harsh. I focused on my breathing, dipping through my various stances several times over before sitting cross-legged on the ground to meditate.

"It's time." Aang's voice had disturbed me from my careful reverie, but I hadn't been angry. I'd lifted myself to my feet quietly, instead, nodding to him once as we moved soundlessly to the armory. To his surprise, I'd packed my Blue Spirit mask in my bag, and as I dressed in my armor, I slipped the wooden persona over my head as easily as breathing.

"We can't be ourselves tonight, Aang. We can't be good people. We have to be merciless, and hateful, because they will be. They're out for blood, and we should be too. We won't be able to survive otherwise." I said lowly, through the mask, letting my fingertips graze the surface of the swords I'd sharpened earlier that evening. Aang's face was pinched as he, too, suited up. Pulling a fitted black mask over his face as well, our eyes met with a quiet agreement floating between us.

We'd bring Katara back, or we'd die trying.

There were no other options.

thank you so much for reading, loves!

please do review, send me some happiness! I've been having a bit of a tough semester, so reviews & some love would be MUCH appreciated~

love you all so much,

xoxo,

nightfall26