Zuko POV

I am a banished prince. I've been burned, discarded, betrayed, bested, beaten, but there is nothing like the eternal hatred I feel for the water bender, Katara. The years I spent at home made sure to cover the study of her kind extensively. The only threat to fire, but always inferior. Or at least, that's what I believed until I met her. I arrived at that shanty village in the table scraps of what was the Southern Water Tribe with the belief, correction, the knowledge according to the reports 10 years ago, that there were no benders left in the South Pole. Yet, there she was. Fearless, determined, and ready to prove herself despite the odds being stacked against her. It was almost Fire Nation if it wasn't for her kind.

She fought alongside her brother and the Avatar battle after battle. We were two enemy ships in constant passing but other than my target, she was the one who had my attention. I had never sparred against my opposite element. Every move she made was intriguing. The flow of her body. Her novice-level experience but assuredness in the way the water did her bidding. The force behind fluidity. I had to capture her, if nothing else but for my own training pleasure. I couldn't let the pirates get to her first.

"I'll save you from the pirates," I breathed to her mere inches from her face.

It was a fair exchange, her knowledge for her apparently irreplaceable necklace. That wretched token of hers haunted me from my nightstand until we met again. I'd trace over the intricacies of the design. The bone material is light, but durable, And the blue cloth was soft to the touch. I'd envision it around her slender neck, and remember the ways her vein would pop underneath it at the sight of me. A rage that almost mirrored my own, if it wasn't for her kind.

"It's a betrothal necklace," Uncle later explained on a night he caught me admiring the necklace.

"A what?" I questioned more harshly than I intended. "She seems hardly of age." A detail that shouldn't matter to me at all.

"I agree," he responded, "but war is upon us, maybe the Water Tribe has altered their traditions given their circumstances. She must be of high rank to be betrothed early. Likely to secure her bloodline."

"She's a Water Tribe peasant," I seethed. "A misfortune to be doomed to a future with the likes of her."

"Remember your manners Prince Zuko," Uncle chastised. "Her kind or not, we do not speak of women with such dishonor. Recall the nature of fire, it forges, it transforms, it births as much as it destroys."

I grimaced and went back to staring at the necklace.

Said necklace was now gracing her slender throat and she exclaimed, "My mother's necklace!"

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. So it wasn't hers. I shouldn't feel relief.

The pirates left in search of the Avatar, which left Katara and I until daybreak. She kept slumping against the tree she was tied to. Knees bent, and repeatedly snapping her head up to stay alert, not trusting us to attempt sleep. Even with one eye open. In those brief moments she would allow herself peace, she almost looked serene. The water bender was a testament to her element. As tranquil and beautiful as low tide in early mornings. I couldn't allow that.

"It'd be smarter to give up your pride and tell me where he is," I snarked. "Come daybreak your resistance will be futile. I'll have the Avatar and my honor in a weeks time."

She snapped her head back to the tree fixing her ocean eyes on me filled with so much fire it'd put my father's war room to shame. "You'd be smarter to give up your ponytail, along with your hopes of getting Aang in your Fire Nation clutches, if you think we'd give him up without a fight."

I walked up to her tied to the tree and the peasant didn't even flinch. "You'd be smarter to not make threats with the enemy knowing you're nowhere near mastering your element. I know these scrolls are just as much for you as they are for him. You're no master, and your kind is no threat to me."

She huffed and blew air into my face that seemed to have gotten closer with our heated argument. "My kind? The resilient Water Tribe who managed to stay afloat despite with war and complete lack of resources the Fire Nation blockades and embargoes placed upon our shores? My tribes still squirm under the heavy thumb, if not the heaviest thumb, of the Fire Nation because everyone knows that once the Northern Tribe reenters the war, the Fire Nation will have a real fight on their hands. I am not a master, yet, but believe me, when I rise to represent my kind, I will be the greatest threat you've ever faced."

At that moment I realized it was not fire I saw in the water benders eyes, it was ice. "I'll believe that when I see it, Water Tribe Peasant," I smirked and backed away from her while she continued to glare icicles through me. "Get some sleep, my men won't touch you. My greatest threat needs to be well rested." I chuckled.

Katara's eyes fluttered and her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths as she fought sleep and her rage. Eventually, the tranquility of the ocean took over, until she was reawakened a few hours later with the Avatar in the pirate's clutches. Until he wasn't, and then they were both gone.

The next I would hear of her would be weeks later. I freed the Avatar and earned his rescue against my own kind. The Avatar was adamant about getting the Water Tribe peasants these frozen frogs. It'd be a shame if my greatest threat got sick.

Now weeks had passed without seeing her. On another night Uncle caught me tracing the waves in her necklace, he recommended a mercenary. Jun. Mercenaries. Skeevy people with no moral codes or allegiances. Everything they did was for personal gain. If it wasn't for my upbringing, maybe I would've liked that lifestyle. The Blue Spirit would have his weight in gold.

"What happened?" Jun drawled. "Your girlfriend run off on you?"

I chalked up the shiver that went down my spine at the word "girlfriend," to disgust. Almost as disgusting as watching Jun and Uncle flirt.

The beast was hot on the water bender's trail and when we emerged from the woods, there she was. Backed against the dirt with a backpack and on foot? Where was the Avatar? Where was she going?

"No wonder she left, she's way too pretty for you," Jun commented.

'I'd given up on finding a pretty girl the moment I got this scar.' I thought.

I wedged the paralyzed water bender between her brother and me on the beast to keep a hold of her while we rode. She is of no importance to me. I just need her for my training. When the Avatar knocked us over I let her and her idiot brother be carried off the battlefield. I'd be back for her right after. I was so focused on the Avatar that when the wave of perfume fell I was frozen. She had gotten much better since I last saw her. Not too bad for her kind. Then she was gone along with her necklace.

It'd be a few weeks to get to the Northern Water Tribe. I'd go to sleep with my palms itching, rubbing my fingertips together missing the way the cloth of her necklace would ripple under my touch. I wonder if she would ripple too. I shook off the intrusive thought and continued to rub my hands together for warmth on the upper deck watching the crew dance. It was music night on Zhao's ship.

"It won't be long before we reach the North Pole," Uncle interjected from behind me, breaking my thoughts.

"A nice chance to see some real water benders," I mused to Uncle. Excitement showed in my dialect about reaching our destination.

"Master Katara sure has improved since the pirates," Uncle chimed. "I wonder how she will fair against the Northern Tribe's customs."

"She's not a master," I grimaced and turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"In the North, they don't teach female water benders combat. It was a Southern trait. The warriors of the Southern Water Tribe were formidable, hence the constant raids in the South early in the war." Uncle informed.

"That's—" I began but didn't quite know how to complete the sentence. This goes against her plans of becoming my so-called "greatest threat." If there is no one to teach her, what other challenger would compare? Knowing her fire, or rather her ice, she will not allow herself to be lessened based on tradition. It's not in Her Kind. "Challenging," I concluded. 'For them', I thought. I nodded to Uncle and put the mask back on to remain undercover.

A few hours out from the North Pole I stowed away with only two things on my mind. The capture of the Avatar, and the battle against her.

"Well, aren't you a big girl now?" I chimed entering the oasis.

There she was, confident, older in a way, and wearing that wretched necklace that haunted my nightstand in the moments she was afar. It felt like the power of Agni was pulsing through my veins in her presence. I was ready to make steam.

The fight commenced and the peasant was able to knock me off my feet. I stood with a glimmer in my eye and the adrenaline only she could pull out of me. She froze my feet and encased me in something similar to what the Avatar hatched from months ago. Through the ice, I could see her pompous smirk. It was almost like my kind.

The similarity was enraging. "You little peasant. You've found a master haven't you?"

I melt the ice encompassing me and attack her with more vigor. I came inches from marring that pretty face with a scar like mine that she dodged in the knick of time. I fought the pang in my chest from the act. I was ready to burn her, I was ready to claim her with a mark that would brand her as unmistakably mine. I faltered and ended up frozen to the wall.

When the sun came up I was reignited with my element and reignited with the opportunity to best her. I knocked her into the wooden post with the fresh light of day granted to me.

"You rise with the moon," I said holding the Avatar's shirt. "I rise with the sun."

The Avatar was in my grasp. Granted he was in my grasp, in a cave, in the middle of a blizzard but he was mine. With the kid in the Avatar state, I allowed myself a moment of reflection.

"I've always had to struggle and fight, and it's made me strong… it's made me who I am."

I looked away and tried not to think of her face. Someone else who was put in an unlucky situation. The only water bender of her kind, the first woman in years to train in combat in the North Pole despite the war. There is no doubt that this proud, conservative tribe made her earn it. No, knowing her she had to take it. There were no trials for her, no entry tests. She had to challenge them though they were all against her. She had to make herself strong.

I hate that bison, but I hate her more. After being knocked unconscious by an ice pillar I awoke to Uncle's voice, and realized I was tied up on the bison. She didn't let me die. Granted, it was probably the Avatar who vouched for my life, but with the hold the water bender had on him, if she had wanted me to freeze I probably would've. Her mistake, I thought as I snuck off the bison the Northern Water Tribe Princess none the wiser.

I unleashed the rage I felt towards her on Zhao. Zhao had been a thorn in my side just as much as she had, but he was the next best thing with her out of reach. To the end the man was a prick, he had chosen a fate against the spirits rather than my hand.

One month later and an unforgivable attack from my sister, Uncle and I cut our hair. I would have to pursue my honor as a fugitive. I am a banished prince. I've been burned, discarded, betrayed, bested, beaten, but there is nothing like the eternal hatred I feel for the water bender, Katara. My greatest threat against capturing the Avatar.