Katara learned of Lord Ukano's death when Lady Mai and her mother, Lady Michi, paid a visit after breakfast to request permission to wear formal mourning. There was no love lost between Katara and Lord Ukano, though he was technically her foster father, and perversely, she had him to thank for her success in life. With his demise, the last serious threat to Zuko's reign had been quashed, and Katara, Zuko, and their family were finally safe. Nevertheless, Katara didn't have it in her heart to celebrate his death, and his grieving daughter and widow's demands were hardly unreasonable.
"Absolutely not!" Azula rose from the mat she was kneeling on and nearly disturbed the tea things spread out neatly on the low table. "Such a suggestion is dangerously close to treason."
Lady Mai knelt at Azula's feet, her voluminous bustle making her look like a snail. "But Princess," she said, her usual stony mask slipping. "We weren't even able to retrieve his body..."
"Throwing him in a ditch or out with the garbage would have been too good for him."
Lady Michi began to sob and Izumi offered her a handkerchief.
Azula gave the widow one of her haughty, barking laughs. "Don't cry, Lady Michi. You're still a handsome woman. You'll find someone else to warm your bed now that your husband's gone, though widow's weeds will do you few favors."
Katara sighed. Azula never could let an opportunity to be cruel pass her by.
"Honored sister-in-law," she said. "You forget that Lady Mai is my lady-in-waiting, and it's my permission for her to wear mourning that matters." She couldn't help but chuckle. So this was what peacetime had reduced them to? A couple of court bitches fighting over table scraps.
Katara extended a hand to Lady Mai. "You may rise," she said. Mai stood up and smoothed her skirts. "I understand the grief you feel for your father and I'll grant your request."
If anyone else had asked to wear mourning for a traitor, Katara probably wouldn't have allowed it. But Lady Mai was her foster sister and one of the few people to be kind to her when she first arrived in Caldera. Moreover, she and her husband, Kei Lo, had never been anything other than loyal to Zuko, despite Lord Ukano's rebellion.
A person could distance themself from a rebel and still grieve for a father.
Lady Michi finished drying her tears. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. "Thank you, your highness," she said.
Katara doubted that Lady Michi had ever loved her husband. She was probably weeping more for her drop in wealth and status since becoming the widow of a defeated traitor than for Lord Ukano himself. But, she would be alright. With a daughter and son-in-law to take her in, Lady Michi wouldn't be thrown out on the streets as Katara had seventeen years earlier.
"How could you be so forgiving?" Azula said. She took a sip of tea. "Especially after what Lord Ukano did to you."
Katara opened her umbrella and ventured out into the night. With her free hand, she pulled her shawl closer to her body. The autumn cold and damp still rummaged through her clothes like pickpockets.
Why leave the comparative warmth and comfort of the gambling den? The answer was simple. You were no good to them after they'd taken all your money. But, it was her own damn fault. She was the one who'd let herself be fleeced like some farm girl just off the cabbage cart.
Most people weren't out this late, even in a shit-hole like Caldera's Jigoku-no-hi district. Still, Katara wasn't alone on the street. A burly young man with tattoos covering his arms and chest, visible through the opening of his robes, stood underneath the awning of a noodle shop. Katara avoided his gaze as she walked past him. This scumbag had been eyeing her between rolls of the dice all night. She held her breath. Just keep going and not draw attention to herself. The last thing she needed tonight was more trouble.
A tug on her sleeve stopped Katara in her tracks. Her forearm was laid bare to the cold. Katara flushed at having been so indecently exposed and pulled away. "Excuse me," she said.
"Where you going, sweetheart?" the tattooed man said. He grabbed Katara's wrist, and she tried to squirm free, dropping her umbrella. "Come on, don't play the little lady. You're inked up like the rest of us." He referred to the Water Tribe markings etched with black ink into Katara's hands, wrists, and forearms. His other hand grabbed Katara's hip and pulled her closer. "Let's see what else you're hiding."
Katara's back hit a stone wall. Two more thugs joined the tattooed man and cornered her in. One pulled at Katara's shawl and the sleeves of her robe, stripping her upper body aside from her breast bindings.
The other two whistled in appreciation.
Feeling around in her obi, Katara found the tanto dagger hidden there. A parting gift from her brother, Sokka, who claimed that it was the kind of weapon that Fire Nation noblewomen used to guard their virtue.
Well, Sokka. It will come in handy now.
Katara drew the tanto and held it to the throat of the man who'd stripped her. "I hope you enjoyed the view," she said. A slash to the cheek distracted him long enough for Katara to escape.
"You little bitch!"
"Get her!"
Her heart pounded in her chest like a drum. She slipped off her platform getas to make it easier to run around the corner into a side street and as far away from these creeps as possible. Stepping through a puddle that would comfortably house a school of goldfish, Katara bent the water to splash them in the face. Maybe they'd think twice about following her.
Now, if only she could find a place to get out of the rain for the night, bend her clothing dry, and pray she wouldn't be dead from pneumonia in the morning.
A pair of strong arms caught her as she turned the corner into the side street. Katara's first instinct was to draw her blade again, but a hand grabbed her wrist to stop her. Another covered her mouth to keep her from screaming.
"Don't say anything," a raspy male voice whispered in her ear.
Over Katara's shoulder was the blue and white face of an oni, but the warm, solid muscle and beating heart she rested against definitely belonged to a human. On each side was a duo sword.
The spirit produced the umbrella Katara had dropped earlier and opened it. Politeness required that Katara tell him "thank you," but with the three scumbags gaining on them, it was better to do what the spirit said and not say anything.
He drew his swords and faced Katara's assailants while she cowered underneath her umbrella. Katara steadied herself against the nearest wall. The gaudy lanterns hanging from the eaves, red for brothels, green for gambling dens, and yellow for a noodle shop or dumpling stand, blurred together with the flashing of blades.
The spirit caught her around the waist and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
"It's alright," he said. "They're gone."
"Thank you." Katara smiled up at the blue and white oni mask. Just who was underneath there?
"Do you have anywhere else to go? It wouldn't be right to leave you here."
This question made Katara chuckle a little. "Do you think I'd be out here on a night like this if I had anywhere else to be?"
She'd stayed in a room with four other girls in a lodging house a few streets over until this morning when her money ran out. So off to the pawnshop with the last thing of value she had to sell. A jade obi brooch.
Katara was friendly with Dock, the old man who ran the pawn shop, due to her coming in there a couple of times a week. Dock took her silk robes and gold hair pins for a fair price, but he had a terrible habit of talking her ear off about current events.
"The entire city's goin' to hell," he'd say. "T'ain't safe for a young girl to be here on her own."
The Fire Nation's entire governing body had fled Caldera at the start of the war, leaving the city to its own devices. Prince Zuko, his sister, and their uncle were in hiding. Clashes between the Dai Lee and the White Lotus left piles of bodies and rivers of blood in their wake. Katara had to harden herself to the all too common sight of a woman weeping over a dead husband or son, a girl mourning a brother or lover, or families left destitute and vulnerable by the loss of their protectors and breadwinners.
She didn't understand why so many had to suffer and didn't care enough to try. All that mattered was getting enough money to keep herself fed and lodged for another few days and setting aside a couple of coins for her eventual trip home.
It was Dock's identical and even more eccentric twin brother, Shoe, who gave Katara the idea to try to double her savings by betting it on a dice game and advised her to place her bets on evens instead or odds. Never again would she take advice from batty old men.
"There's a place nearby I can take you," the spirit said after Katara explained her situation to him.
"Go off with a strange man?" Katara giggled. "What kind of girl do you take me for?"
The spirit also laughed. "Is that all I am to you, Lady Katara? A strange man?" As Katara wondered how he knew her name, he removed his mask, revealing a perfectly beautiful face marred by a glaring red burn scar.
"Prince Zuko." Her shining prince had come to her rescue.
Katara had interacted with Prince Zuko only a handful of times during her stay at the royal palace. Nothing more than he'd shared with the other maidens competing for the honor of becoming his bride. He probably hadn't even thought much about them afterward. But Katara hadn't stopped thinking about how he'd complimented the embroidery on her handkerchief. Or when he'd tucked a sprig of apple blossoms behind her ears when he noticed she didn't have any hair ornaments or the golden hairpin he sent her the following day.
So, she fell in love with Prince Zuko as only a young girl can fall in love with someone she could never have.
Zuko lead Katara away. Katara sighed and nestled closer to him. With his arms around her, she was the safest person in the city. The large house Zuko brought her to was a few streets over, in a humble but less disreputable part of Caldera. A white lantern hung outside the front door, marking it as an inn.
"Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon," Zuko said.
Despite the late hour, the main room of the Jasmine Dragon bustled with people. Fire Nation soldiers aligned with the White Lotus shared crude jokes with Earth Kingdom mercenaries and flirted with the pretty servant girls who poured their tea and sake.
"Good evening, My Prince." An elegant, silver-haired woman, presumably the inn's proprietress, greeted Zuko with a bow, then took in the half-naked and desperate-looking girl at his side. Specifically, the tattoos on Katara's arm. "Agni's flame... the poor thing... what happened to her?"
Zuko explained everything to the proprietress, who he addressed as Aunt Wu, about how thugs had attacked Katara. Aunt Wu looked at Katara's tattoos the whole time, probably thinking Prince Zuko had picked up some fallen flower off the street. A Jigoku blossom, as the local slang called them, was not necessarily a whore, but a girl who would go to bed with a man for a hot meal and a place to stay for the night.
If Katara hadn't been drowning under the weight of her wet clothes, she would have pulled her legs back up and asked the old possum-bat if she had something to say to her.
Aunt Wu pulled Zuko aside. "I keep telling you men, I'm not running a... a house of ill-repute."
"It's not like that, Aunt Wu." The rest of Zuko's face turned as red as his burn scar."
Katara swore that if she were still alive in the morning, she would give Aunt Wu a generous piece of her mind.
After Zuko set the record straight about Katara's respectability, Aunt Wu waved at two giggling servant girls on their way to the kitchen. "Meng, Jin," she said. Meng had a toothy smile and frizzy hair that she wore in pigtails. Jin looked to be about Katara's age and far enough along for her pregnant belly to be just about visible underneath her clothes. "See that Miss Katara gets a hot bath and a warm dinner."
"Put her in my room," Zuko added.
Meng, with the fizzy pigtails, snorted with laughter as she went upstairs. Pregnant Jin took Katara's arm and led her to the women's bath house. Katara looked back. Behind her, Zuko was walking toward a portly, bearded man and a beautiful woman with a painted face in a black kimono and a purple obi.
The portly man clapped Zuko on the back. "Prince Zuko, come have tea with us before you go to bed," he said. He gave Katara a benevolent smile. "On a night like this, nothing goes better with a good story than a steaming cup of Júhuā chá."
When Meng brought Katara fresh clothes after her bath, Katara expected to be given something borrowed from one of the servants. But, she received a black silk kimono printed with samurai battling giant skeletons and an obi with a pattern of skulls.
The kimono was too large for Katara. She struggled to keep it from falling off her shoulders as she knelt on the futon bed and waited for Zuko to return so she could thank him properly for his kindness.
Katara took a sip of the warmed saké that Meng had brought along with a bowl of miso soup. But, unfortunately, the saké did little to soothe her nerves.
She knew Zuko would ask her to repay him on her back with her legs open. Oh well. If she had to lose her virtue that night, this was preferable to losing it to one of those thugs back there. Spending your money on food and shelter is always better than having it stolen from you.
And, at least, she was attracted to Zuko.
Whether it was because of the sake or the late hour, Katara's eyes felt heavy, and her head drooped slightly. She should rest a little. Zuko would wake her up when he got back.
If Zuko had returned to his room that night, it was after Katara had fallen asleep, and he must have left before she woke at dawn.
Did he not want her? Sure, Katara, with her sweet face and sturdy, curvaceous figure, was what most Water Tribe men desired, but she didn't look like the court beauties Zuko was used to. They were all as pale and slender as cranes and had eyes like smoldering embers. Katara wasn't the type Zuko would take to wife but weren't men less picky when it came to the women they just took to bed?
Zuko's kindness came with no ulterior motives.
After smoothing her hair and making herself look more presentable, Katara went to the kitchen and asked Aunt Wu for a job. She put on the same green kimono and white apron as the other servant girls and was ready in time to serve breakfast to the inn's guests.
Kneeling in the center of the main room, Katara bowed. "I'm Katara," she said. "It is my honor to serve you."
"My new girl," Aunt Wu said to the portly gentleman who'd spoken to Zuko the night before. "Isn't she a beauty, General?"
General Iroh, Zuko's uncle, nodded.
The General's beautiful companion leaned against his shoulder. "So that's Prince Pouty's girlfriend. She's too pretty for him."
Zuko pulled Katara aside after breakfast and asked about Lord Ukano and his family.
"How would I know?" Katara shrugged. "They took off at the start of the war and left me to fend for myself."
Lord Ukano came into Katara's life with his lacquered jewelry box of a carriage and his rice taffy, like a character from a fairy tale. In such a story, he would pluck the humble but virtuous maiden from her obscurity and bring her to the glittering future she deserved, and that was the part Katara assumed he would play in her life when he knocked on the door of her father's house.
Instead, he was the trickster in a story about not trusting the flattery of strangers.