Katara spent the first few days of their voyage to the Fire Nation doing everything in her power to ignore Zuko's presence, and it seemed that he was ignoring hers as well.

They fell into a kind of routine. For the first day or so, there were at least a couple guards stationed within view of their cells 24/7, but slowly, that vigilance started to lax, until Katara only saw guards when they brought food and water in the mornings and evenings—and when they came to take Zuko away for whatever reason.

It happened at least once a day. Guards would come and blindfold Zuko, then carefully unlock the impressive amount of shackles they had on him before putting him into more portable manacles and dragging him off. Katara didn't know where they were taking him or why, and she hadn't been planning on asking, but on the third day of this, when he came back with clear bruises on his arms, she decided she needed to know.

So she watched in silence out of the corner of her eye as they buckled him back into his shackles, then removed the blindfold and left, locking the cell behind them. As soon as they were gone, Zuko got to his feet with obvious difficulty and walked shakily over to the little cot that was pressed up against the only solid metal wall in his cell (his shackles were attached to long chains bolted in the wall so he could move around in his cell more or less normally). He slumped down onto it, closed his eyes, and didn't move.

Katara waited, thinking he would stir in a moment, but after a minute or two, the sound of his breathing fell into a steady rhythm. He'd fallen asleep.

Well, that wouldn't do. Glancing around to make sure no guards were in sight, Katara shifted to the side of her cell that was nearest to his and tapped on the bars. They made a quiet ringing sound that reverberated up the metal, but Zuko didn't seem to react to that.

"Zuko," Katara whispered. Then a little louder: "Zuko!"

Finally, he stirred. He sat up, brow furrowed as he looked around for who was calling him. Then even more when he saw that it was her.

"Katara?" His voice was always raspy, but it sounded more so now.

"What happened to you?"

Zuko looked down at his arms. "One of my sister's friends."

"The one who took out Sokka at the North Pole?"

He nodded. "Ty Lee. She's good with pressure points."

"Oh." Katara bit her lip. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged. "It's already starting to wear off."

"What do they want with you?"

Zuko sighed. He pushed himself into a more fully upright position on the cot and turned a little to face her. "My sister is trying to figure out if I really am the Avatar or not. She keeps calling me in to ask questions and find a way to force me to prove it." He glanced around surreptitiously and, even though they were already talking in whispers, lowered his voice even more. "I don't think she believes I'm the Avatar. Or at least she doesn't want it to be true. That's why she wanted to capture Aang, too—because she doesn't think it's me."

"Why?" Katara genuinely couldn't see how that could be the case, that she didn't want him to be the Avatar. Wouldn't having the Avatar on the Fire Nation's side (or in the Fire Nation's custody, at least) be a purely good thing from their perspective?

"Let's just say my family and I have a complicated relationship."

"That doesn't explain anything."

Zuko glared at her, but she met his glare with one of her own. "Do you really want to hear my whole life story?" he asked. "Right now, in here?"

"I just want to understand why your sister would be trying so hard to prove you're not the Avatar. It seems to me like the Fire Nation should be happy about the fact that their prince is also the most powerful bender in the world."

Zuko scoffed. "The most powerful bender, yeah." After a pause, he said, "I'm sure the Fire Nation would be happy about it, if they found out. The normal citizens. Azula, though, she's our father's golden child. She's a firebending prodigy, and everything has always come easy to her. Me… Well, you've seen for yourself how much I struggle. She loves being better than me, and I think she might be having trouble with the idea that maybe I'm worth more than she thought."

Katara pursed her lips. "Sounds like she's a great sister."

Zuko glanced over with a hint of an amused smile on his face, but it quickly disappeared. "She didn't used to be so bad."

Katara leaned back against the only solid wall of her cell and looked up at the ceiling, letting the conversation fade. After a few minutes of silence, she heard Zuko's breath slip into the rhythm of sleep again, and she looked toward him. He hadn't even bothered with lying back down on the cot. He'd fallen asleep right there, upright, leaning back against the wall behind his cot. He was going to have a horrible crick in his neck if he stayed like that for too long.

Whatever Ty Lee had done to him must've really sapped his energy because he slept, somewhat restlessly, for at least an hour before he finally woke again.

When he did, he looked around confusedly. "Welcome back," Katara said quietly.

She'd moved to the other side of her cell and begun methodically taking down her hair and running her fingers through it in an attempt to comb it.

"I guess we're talking to each other now?" Zuko asked.

Katara shrugged. "It's not like there's anything else to do."


Days passed. Maybe weeks. Down here in the prison where no sunlight reached, Katara had a hard time counting. If she hadn't seen it when they were brought here, she might not have even realized they were on a boat, because as deep in the ship as they were, she could barely feel any rocking.

At first, she tried to keep track by counting meals, but that seemed pointless after a while. Plus, meals came somewhat inconsistently, as if the guards were trying to keep them confused. Or under fed. Probably both.

No matter how many days it was, though, Katara found that they were, surprisingly, better than the first few had been—not in terms of their accommodations or treatment, of course. But after she'd broken the silence, the tension between her and Zuko had fallen away somewhat, and she at least had someone to talk to. She worried, though, about what was happening to Sokka and Aang and Appa—and even Princess Yue. Where were they? Were they on the ship somewhere? Were they even alive?

Guards still came and took Zuko away every day for the first few days, and he would sometimes come back looking haggard and bruised. Slowly, though, the frequency of these departures decreased, as Azula evidently decided she wasn't going to get anything more out of him.

"Do you get to go outside," Katara asked, a little wistfully, one day a few hours after Zuko returned from one of his outings, "when they take you for questioning?"

She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bars closest to Zuko's cell, and he was doing the same on his side. They'd taken to doing this when they talked.

There was about a foot of space between each cell, and the bars were too tightly spaced to get an arm through, so they couldn't touch, but they could whisper.

"No," Zuko said. "I think the interrogation chamber is on the same level as our cells. They sometimes take me on a roundabout path, but they never seem to take me up or down any stairs."

"And you haven't seen Sokka or Aang anywhere?"

"They keep the blindfold on until we get to the room." He scratched at his chin, where he'd started to develop stubble. "I think I might've heard people moving in some of the cells we passed? But I'm not sure. If they were there, it's so dark down here they probably didn't even see me with the guards."

Katara brought her knees up and rested her arms on top of them. "I just wish I could find out if they're okay. I wish… well. There are a lot of things I wish."

"I'm sorry," Zuko said, and his voice, which was already pretty quiet to avoid catching the notice of any guards who might be near, became even quieter. "This whole time, all you've wanted was to get to the Northern Water Tribe and find a teacher, and I ruined that for you. Again."

Katara pressed her lips together and stared at her hands. "It's not your fault."

Zuko's eyebrows shot up. "That might be the first time you've ever said those words to me."

Katara was surprised too, honestly. A few weeks before, she would've blamed all of this on Zuko being a coward and a terrible Avatar. She would've raged and sunk deeper into her hatred of him.

But something had changed, ever since that day by the river, when she'd screamed at him, and he'd told her about his mother. She still stood by what she'd said back then, when she'd called him a coward who was doing nothing but running from his problems and his identity. At the time, it was true.

Now, though, he wasn't exactly that person anymore. She didn't know if something about what she'd said had gotten through to him or if it was something else, but in the Northern Air Temple, he'd truly embraced his airbending for the first time. In the North Pole, he'd stood up to Azula, even when she'd been manipulating him to her will so cleverly. Now, on this ship, he'd been enduring torture and somehow managed to stay strong. He'd even gotten more comfortable with referring to himself as the Avatar, which he'd never done before now.

He still wasn't perfect, of course. But, she was starting to realize, being the Avatar didn't mean being perfect. The Avatar was, in the end, a person, and a person had flaws. Her idealized picture of "the Avatar" hadn't accounted for that.

"I know," she said, finally looking at him. "I'm sorry, too. I've been a jerk to you. I've had this vision of what I thought the Avatar should be my whole life, and when you showed up… I guess it's been hard for me to accept that you're not that."

"Well. I've been a pretty awful Avatar so far, so I don't blame you." He paused. "I really am sorry about losing you a master."

Katara played with the pendant around her neck. "Me too."

There was little chance she would ever find a teacher now. As far as she knew, the Water Tribe was only in the North and South Poles, and now both of those were off-limits, maybe for good.

She'd been trying really hard not to think about it, but there was a chance she might have to cut her losses and accept that she'd never be a real waterbender.

With the way everything was going now, that might be the last thing she needed to worry about. Forget learning waterbending, she'd be lucky if she got to see anything but the inside of a prison cell for the rest of her life.

"Maybe we'll be able to find you a master someday," Zuko said.

"From prison?" Katara laughed. "Good luck with that."

"About that." Zuko's voice dropped so much that Katara could barely hear him. "I think we might be able to figure out a way to escape. We just need to find out where the others are somehow."

Katara stared at him—and kept staring until his cheeks started to redden.

"What?"

"How do you suggest we do that?"

"I—I don't know exactly. I just know that even though Azula is very careful, she also has a tendency to underestimate me, and I think if we wait it out, we might be able to use that to our advantage. I mean, you've seen how lax they've gotten with security and it's only been, what, a week?"

Katara pursed her lips, considering it. "I suppose. But the thing is, she's probably right to underestimate us. It's not even underestimating us, really. Even all four of us together are nothing to her. She took us out in no time back at the North Pole."

"That's true." Zuko slumped against the bars and closed his eyes. "I'm no match for her in firebending, and I only just started getting back into the swing of things with airbending."

"And I'm barely even a waterbender," Katara said. She glared at the empty tray of food the guards had brought her this morning. It always came with a tiny cup of water, and Katara usually tried to ration it out throughout the day because it was typically the only water she got all day.

It probably still had a few drops in it.

Thinking of that gave her an idea, though. She raised her hand up and pulled a little stream of water from the cup into the air, then brought it toward her.

"What are you doing?" Zuko asked.

"Maybe we can get better," Katara said. She played with the tiny water droplet, stretching and flattening it and making it form different shapes. "We can practice, whenever guards aren't around to watch us."

Zuko didn't immediately respond, just watched as she formed the water drop into as many different shapes as she could.

Finally, he just said, "Maybe."

In the next second, she felt a breeze circle around her head and push her hair out of her eyes, and she glanced over at Zuko, who was moving his hands in a little swirling motion.

"Just thought I'd help you see a little better," he said. "Since your hands are busy."

Despite herself, Katara smiled slightly. "Thanks."

And so practice they did, in the small ways they were able to. They filled up their days with bending and whispered conversations, sometimes about the bending, sometimes about random topics. Anything to keep their minds off the situation.

The more she got to know him, the more Katara wished she hadn't spent the past few months hating Zuko's guts. He was kind of awkward and abrasive, sure, and Katara definitely didn't agree with everything he said. But he was also thoughtful, and he seemed to genuinely care about doing the right thing. He was just still figuring out exactly what that was.

Could Katara really blame him for that? She struggled with that, too, sometimes, and unlike Zuko, she hadn't grown up in what was possibly the worst family dynamic on the planet. It was a wonder Zuko had turned out as well as he did.

When Katara expressed that one time, late at night, Zuko gave a soft smile. "It's all because of my uncle and my mother. Without them, I'd probably be just as bad as Azula."

Then he sighed, and Katara watched pain dance across his face.

"We'll save him, Zuko," she said.

"Yeah."

Katara let the conversation lapse, because she didn't know what she could possibly say to reassure him right now. After a moment, he got up and laid down on his cot, and a few seconds later, Katara did the same.

More days passed, filled with secretive training and quiet discussions. Katara was amazed at what she'd been able to come up with while locked in this metal box. She continued to practice with the little bit of water the guards gave her every day, but she also experimented elsewhere.

Her breath? There was water vapor there. She discovered she could turn it into frost and ice when she breathed out.

The beads of sweat that coated her body when the metal box that was this ship heated to almost boiling? That was water, too, of course, and even if it was a little gross, she could bend it.

Meanwhile, Zuko was making his own discoveries. It turned out that he was right; eventually the guards got even more lax, or at least forgetful, and neglected to blindfold him him when they grabbed him from the cell to take him to Azula.

When he came back from that visit, he was covered in bruises as usual—but once the guards had left, he revealed to Katara the good news: "I saw them."

"You did? Are they okay?"

"It was hard to tell, they were kind of around a corner from where we were walking. I just got a quick glance, but I think Aang and Sokka were both there. I think I saw the princess, too."

"They're keeping them all in the same place?" Katara asked.

Zuko shrugged. "Seems like it. I think if I had a way to write a note, I might be able to airbend it to Aang. He's not too far away."

He looked around his cell, and Katara looked around hers. There was no paper or any kind of writing utensil, of course, but Zuko's eyes fell on his cot, and Katara raised an eyebrow as he ripped off a chunk of the sheet, about the size of his palm.

Afterwards, though, he just stared at it, as if he didn't know what to do now that he'd gotten this far.

"Wait a little bit," Katara said. "We'll figure something out."

That something came in the form of an increasingly rare evening meal, which the guards brought to them a few hours later. It consisted of bread, a small amount of water, and some kind of lumpy gray mash. Katara wasn't certain if it was oatmeal, potatoes, or something else entirely, but it didn't look particularly appetizing.

She ate the bread first, then pretended to eat the mash while the guards walked away. As soon as the sound of their footsteps faded, she hissed, "Zuko!"

He looked over at her, and she pointed at the mash on his tray, then at his cot. "Try using that."

He looked bewildered. "To sleep on?"

"No, the piece you ripped off. Maybe you can write with this stuff."

Zuko looked dubious, but he retrieved the now-crumpled sheet fragment and dipped his pinky into the food.

He spent a few painstaking minutes carefully pressing the gray mash into the fabric, and when he held it up to Katara, she nodded.

It wasn't pretty, but it was legible, at least. The note read, Give cue when land. Z+K

"That's it?" she asked.

"What else do you want me to say? I can't give them an elaborate plan through food slop notes."

He was right, of course. Plus, they didn't have much of a plan aside from "train as much as possible, then attack as they take us off the ship." It would have to be good enough. "You're sure you can get it to them?"

"As long as it was really Aang that I saw, yes."

Zuko closed his eyes and brought the note up in front of his face, balanced on his palms. He blew on it, and the piece of fabric hovered above his hands as if it had come to life. He flicked his fingers to the left, still keeping his eyes closed, and it blew away on an invisible breeze, slipping through the bars of his cell and disappearing around a corner into darkness.

Katara looked back at Zuko after it had gone, but his eyes were still closed, his face twisted in concentration. He was manipulating his fingers subtly, and Katara could see his eyes shifting behind his eyelids, like he was tracking something in his mind's eye. After a few more seconds, he opened his eyes again. "Hopefully that worked."

Even if it didn't, Katara was pretty impressed. "What did you just do?"

"I've been practicing sending things to places I can't see. Yesterday I sent a little bit of fabric to a spot down the path they normally take me to get to my sister, and it was there today." He lifted his arm, and Katara realized there was a little chunk missing from the edge of his sleeve. "I just have to know about how far away the place is, so I can visualize it. I don't think I'd be able to send stuff across an ocean or anything, but short distances, probably."

"Did Aang teach you how to do that?"

"Uh, kinda?" Zuko scratched at his head. "He was starting to, and I sort of…extrapolated."

Katara nodded. They both stared off in the direction he'd sent the note, and after a few minutes of silence, Zuko turned away and said, "We probably shouldn't expect a response. He has no idea where—"

At that moment, a breeze started to blow through their cells, and a similar piece of white fabric floated around the corner and slid through the bars to rest at Zuko's feet.

Katara stifled a laugh as Zuko, dumbfounded, bent to pick up the fabric. It appeared to be a note written with the same substance Zuko had used. He read it, then held it up to Katara to read:

Got it. Nice job. You practiced.

"I guess that's why he's the master and you're still a student, Avatar," she said with a wry smile.

Zuko shook his head a little and smiled too. Then he started ripping the note into shreds.

"Hopefully it's enough," he said quietly.