AN: Thanks for all your support!
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fuck a princess, I'm a king
bow down and kiss on my ring
it's gonna hurt, it'll sting
spitting your blood in the sink
I'm crazy but you like that
-I bite back,
daises on your nightstand
-never forget,
I blossom in the moonlight
-screw eyes,
glacial with the blue ice
-I'm terrifying
"Daisy" Ashnikko
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In the hours before dawn, Katara climbed past the stone bench and picked her way up the rocky slope toward Caldera. She softened her footsteps the way she had learned to do in warrior training and listened sharply for any sign of a trap. There was none. So far.
The moon hung low in the west, casting soft light over the rough terrain, but it was still difficult to know just how deep a shadow was before her foot was in it. The volcano only got steeper, and soon she was climbing on all fours, sweat rolling down her face and neck as she pulled herself upward. Near the midway point, she paused to sit on a large rock and catch her breath. The slope became a near-vertical wall up ahead. She was not looking forward to that.
It wasn't as steep as the cliffs on the way back to Gao Ling. Then again, there would be no climbing partner, no Suki on the end of her rope to encourage and heckle her in equal measure. And while Katara had had most of a night's sleep before sneaking out for this adventure, she still wasn't as strong as she had been those months ago.
Probably because she'd been neglecting her chi.
Flush with fresh irritation, she continued on up the incline. Sore fingers were entirely preferable to reflecting on... he-who-was-not-here-and-need-not-be-named, so she redirected her mind to the task before her. When she got to the base of the cliff, though, she pulled up short, laying her hands flat on the ground.
There was water here, under the surface. She could feel it, deep underground, flowing through unseen ways. Experimentally, she pulled.
The spring water came gushing out of cracks in the mountain, sending up a plume of steam as it emerged. Alarmed by the loudness of it, Katara dropped it at once and peered around again. Still, there was no one. No sign of a trap. No sign of anyone up here. She returned to the water, pulling more slowly this time to draw up a thick stream.
This was the water that fed the hot springs, she realized. It flowed through the moonlight, giving off whorls of steam and a heavy mineral scent.
With the water, the cliff was not so hard to scale. Katara reached the top as the moon was touching down on the sea, and the view - that yellow orb drizzling the waves in glimmering sparks - had her pausing again to catch her breath. Even nights in the Fire Nation were not very cool, but the wind that rolled up the mountain was humid and revitalizing.
Katara stood in the wind for a moment and let herself be revitalized.
She felt in herself some broken ends reconnecting, some vital parts righting themselves. This was what she was meant to be doing. This was where she was supposed to be. She had not made a mistake after all... or if she had, she now had a chance to win something that could make the price she had paid at least a little less steep and pointless.
There was not much night left, and little light to work with in that time, so she hurriedly picked her way through a tight pass in the rim of the volcano and stared down on the royal city. Caldera was almost pretty from here, speckled with lanterns and gas streetlights that gleamed along the intricate tiered rooftops.
Katara scowled and shut that thought away. The lights were garish, the roofs were angular and jagged, and the people here were the worst.
Except, she supposed, maybe Lady Gan. Katara looked down on the estate nearest to where she stood and, sure enough, it was Lord Gan's tidy landscaping she recognized. And, since there was still no sign of a trap, she supposed Lady Gan might not have been trying to trick her.
The real test would come tomorrow night, when she would actually begin her plan. Tonight, there was time only for scouting. And that time was up.
Katara had to retrace her steps very slowly, guided only by starlight now. The greenish haze of pre-dawn found her picking her way down the lower slope, and the rest of the descent was easy in the building daylight. She slipped through the hidden door in the wall and crept through the grounds and, finally, back through the sliding door that opened onto her bedroom.
Three anxious faces turned to her at once.
"Where have you been?" Loska hissed. "The Prince invited you to train at dawn. We've been stalling this whole time!"
"Machi has come by twice," Sian said, almost apologetically.
"It's a lucky thing she seems to think your defiance is a common feature for royals rather than a behavioral issue." Iyuma scanned her up and down. "Were you digging a hole out there? You're all dirty."
Katara glanced down at the grit ground into her hands and dusting her dark trousers. "No. Just, uh, a little walk. But probably better if I don't go out looking like this."
"Hurry up if you're going to wash." Loska pointed at the basin on her vanity and, annoyed but seeing no reason to argue, Katara set about changing out of her soiled clothing and cleaning the grime away. Sian started bustling about in the closet.
"So where did you go?"
Down to her underwear and scrubbing at her hands, Katara glanced up to take in Iyuma's look in the mirror. Loska was also there, frowning testily at her back, but Iyuma just looked curious. Maybe a bit uncertain.
They would probably be safer if they didn't know... but she abruptly realized she was going to need their help. Because she couldn't very well just bust out the healers and set them loose in the woods. They had to go somewhere safe. And this, right now, was the safest place she knew of.
"I climbed up to Caldera to scout a path so I can start freeing the other healers."
They both gaped at her. "Just like that?" Iyuma shook her head as if to dispel the incredulity.
Katara nodded. "It's time. I'm not waiting around any longer. We have to do this ourselves."
"We?" Loska wheezed. "You plan to drag us into your crime? Have you thought at all about what will happen to us when we're caught?"
"I won't be caught," Katara said with more confidence than she really felt. "And you won't be anywhere close to the danger. All you have to do is be ready to help them and hide them when I get them back here."
Loska chewed her thumbnail even as she shook her head; she was so pale she might have been on the brink of a meltdown. Iyuma's eyes were wide and bright. Any uncertainty she had felt had quickly evaporated, leaving only excitement.
"Right under the Fire Prince's nose?" she said, a grin breaking out. "He's not in on this?"
"Water Tribe business," Katara said, her own teeth flashing in answer. "And Sian."
She had been hesitating in the closet doorway, clutching an armful of clothes. When she heard her name, she startled. Katara turned her head to look directly at her.
"How about it, Sian? Do you want to help us save our people?"
"I- of course, Princess Katara!"
Loska rolled her eyes and stopped biting her nails long enough to scoff. "As if she would deny you anything, Princess."
Katara heaved a breath. "Sian, you don't have to help if you don't want to. There is a chance you might get in trouble."
"I don't care." Her voice was quiet - as it always was - but there was an undercurrent of strength there. A little steel that Katara had rarely seen in her. "I don't know what I can do to help, but tell me and I'll do it."
"Ugh." Loska folded her arms hard over her chest. "The healers won't just trustingly follow you off into the night like your handmaid. You're asking these women to risk punishment and take an enormous risk that you, another enslaved woman, will be able to get them to safety."
"Loska, for La's sake," Iyuma sighed.
But Katara looked at her reflection in the mirror and knew at once that she was right. She looked thin and there were smudges under her eyes. In just her sarashi, she could see the top and bottom ends of the scar Pakku had sliced into her chest. Her hair was presently pulled back in the rough wolftail - without beads - that she had paused to tie when she woke some hours ago. She didn't look like a princess or a powerful bender. And these healers weren't guaranteed to know who she was in any case. They would have no reason to think she could protect them. And that could mean a bunch of whispered conversations trying to convince frightened people to take a risk, wasting precious time when they should be escaping.
But she would have to think about that later.
Katara turned to grab her clothes from the bed where Sian had laid them out, but pulled up short. "I am not wearing that."
Sian looked at the clothing, then back at her, bewildered. "This is a common style for bending."
Loska uttered a horrified little noise. She didn't have to say the word Scandalous! for everyone in the room to hear it. Katara frowned and was about to refuse again, but Iyuma spoke first.
"Looks a lot more comfortable to move in than your dress clothes. Unless you think you might get burned with so much skin showing?"
"No," Katara muttered grudgingly. "Zuko won't burn me."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Yes," Loska said with crackling sarcasm as she stalked from the room, "so much fuss when he has already seen it all anyway. Hurry up!"
Katara blushed and glowered after her, but she grabbed the clothes and dressed hurriedly.
"So he won't burn you," Iyuma said, a sadistic grin spreading across her face. "But he'll burn for you, ehn?"
Katara, hopping to get into her pants, shot her a sour look. Then, suddenly, she smiled. "You know what? You seem like you could use some exercise, too."
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Zuko worked slowly through his kata and then a few advanced sets as the sun warmed him and the courtyard around him. He worked without fire through the first repetitions, letting his muscles grow hot and limber, then proceeded to harness his impatience and blast his way through the next set at maximum volume.
Katara had to be awake by now... and if not, the noise was even more likely to draw her out. He had instructed Machi that she could decline to join him if she wanted to, but he was hoping the necessity of training paired with the annoyance of disturbed sleep would be enough to lure her into the courtyard.
Sure enough, he wasn't even halfway through the set when she appeared, glaring in the morning light. Zuko glanced at her from the corner of his eye and then stopped and fully turned his head to take her in. She wore plain pants with the roomy cut intended for exercise, cuffed below the knee to keep her feet unimpeded. Bracers protected her forearms and her top was a cropped wrap that bared much of her shoulders and midriff. Firebenders' clothing.
The collar hung heavy around her throat.
But it was her hair, which had for so long been styled in topknots and braids, that really grabbed his attention today. It was back in its simple wolftail. It looked different now. Shaggy and a little wild. But the sight of it struck him.
It summoned up a lot of memories that kicked through his chest like ostrich-horses, but it was also... reassuring. It made her look incrementally more like herself.
"Iyuma is joining us," she informed him, folding her arms over her chest and frowning down at him from the top of the steps. It was an imperious posture, and it made Zuko's pulse thump.
He finally spotted the other woman following along just behind Katara. She was watching him closely. They both were. He suddenly had a feeling that they had been talking about him and there was some test going on that he had not known to prepare for.
"Okay," he said, a little dumbly. His good ear was getting hot. He glowered. "She can watch. I'm not sparring with a beginner. Do you need to warm up?"
Katara marched right past him and assumed a ready stance. Iyuma sat down on the steps, but Zuko had already forgotten about her. He bowed to his opponent. She narrowed her eyes and worked her jaw to one side.
He did not feel the same flash of fury at her disrespect today. Instead, anger persisted in him at a constant low throb, not even directed at her, really, but largely at his other problems - problems that were actually problems, as opposed to Katara, who was more of a... a duty.
No. More like a privilege he hadn't fully appreciated before he'd lost it. And even the shadow of it now was a privilege of its own. Because, if she had not persisted and stayed with him, if she had not come back in his moment of need, he would have no chance to redeem himself.
And Zuko was determined to set this right. He just... had no clear idea of what it was going to take to do that exactly. In fact, during the sleepless hours he had laid awake last night, he had racked up a lot of reasons why she might never forgive him at all. With her attitude toward him the seething resentment that it was, anything he tried could just as easily blow up in his face.
But Zuko was not unaccustomed to chasing after impossible quarry. The first step was training and getting Katara back to form. After that... well, he'd come up with something.
She shot a tight stream straight from the fountain at him and Zuko burst into motion, dodging and attacking at lightning speed. Katara met him blow for blow, flowing deftly out of the way any time he got too close. She must have been feeling a lot better today because her speed and endurance both had improved; they fought for some time before her movements started to lose their precision.
In fact, she seemed... different. More relaxed and at peace than he could remember having seen her since... Well, at least since their arrival in the Fire Nation. Maybe even before that.
The realization filled him with an aching relief. And, in the pragmatic part of his mind where he had been mulling over one of the actual problems - really, the most immediate and frightening problem - he started to fix his sights on one solution in particular.
Her water gulped down his fire and burst, spraying back toward her only to be divided to either side and then sweep back toward Zuko in high and low assaults. He rolled sideways in the air to slip between them, then pitched himself up onto the edge of the fountain so that he could leap down at her with a fiery kick. She somersaulted out of the way and cracked a whip of water at him, but he was already in motion and she missed him by a few feet.
He pressed her until she stumbled, but when he stopped his attack short, she ruthlessly took his feet out from under him.
"Stop playing around," she snapped, slashing blades of ice at the ground where he had quickly rolled away.
"If I beat you too easily, you might get discouraged again," taunted Zuko's mouth, independent of his brain. His body, meanwhile, dropped into a fast set. Katara was clearly beginning to struggle to keep up, but if she wanted it, he'd give it to her.
"Who are you, my life coach?"
She rose to the challenge, fresh heat in her eyes. Her water flashed in the sun, new waves surging up out of the fountain to join swells she raised from the pavement. His every blast vanished in steam, wiped cleanly out of the air. She was sweating - or maybe the steam was falling on her skin. Whatever the cause, she glittered like the sea in the morning light, the muscles in her bared belly worked with her breathing, and her eyes were bright and focused and fierce.
And above those eyes he caught glimpses of her wolf-tail, bristling and flicking with her movements. Wild. Proud.
He remembered her on her father's ship again. He remembered her in the mud outside Gao Ling, the fight she had decided she wanted more than kissing - because Zuko had been in a foul mood over the rain.
How many chances had he missed with her because he had been preoccupied with some ultimately insignificant distraction?
And yet he struggled even now to marshal his thoughts to the present moment. He fought to remind himself of his mission: redemption, pure and uncomplicated, improving life for Katara and her people. Clean and honorable.
She landed a blow, broke his root and sent him staggering back. He recovered quickly - and he didn't miss the way her teeth flashed in the briefest grin before she shifted to meet his reprisal.
She still liked fighting with him. She still liked one thing about him, and that shook him with all the force of an unexpected triumph.
It welled up in him, undeniable as the tide. The sight of her. The memories. He tried hard to shake it off, forced his mind to more sobering moments, but the feeling returned again and again, seeping up through everything. A vast well of longing, and the piercing spearhead of desire.
This was her. Not a faint shadow of herself, not the tragic remnants of a once-great warrior. This was her. She was here.
There was no room for these feelings here - or, really, anywhere in Zuko's life right now. They were not feelings he should feel for her, most especially when she was wearing that Agni-cursed collar, and she shouldn't have to tolerate the sight of them on his face, he knew that.
He knew... But what should be and what was were simply two different things.
Desire forced its way in, implacable, insinuating itself through all his extremities and rooting deep in his chest and his groin. Fire in every part of him. Zuko drew it up and launched it back at her in the only way it might do any good for anyone - a force to be battled against, a target to be destroyed.
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Katara noticed when Zuko stopped sparring and started fighting. It was what she had demanded, and it was so much better than being coddled, but...
The way he was starting to look at her now... His eyes darted over her, lingering longer than it took to read the angle of her shoulders or the distribution of her weight. His stare was hot on her face and her belly, hotter than it had been that moment in the spring yesterday. Hotter than the flames he struck into the air.
It made Katara feel a lot of things. Outraged and angry that he would dare look at her so hungrily, embarrassed that Iyuma might notice...
...and, faint but most unwelcome of all, an answering pang striking through her like a bell, the leash of memory and attraction yanking taut.
Because despite everything he had said and done to make himself her enemy, he looked so achingly familiar. His yellow eyes penetrated her, pinned her. His movements were quick and forceful, his strikes resonating with his power. His muscular arms were bared by his training tunic and she kept catching glimpses of the burn scar on the back of his shoulder - the scar he had gotten the night they rescued Sokka. His shouts of exertion as he fought echoed back to the battles they had won together.
But also battles he had won against her.
He wasn't that boy. But in this moment, in this fight, he sure looked like him. He sure sounded like him.
Katara stamped at the traitorous thoughts as hard as she could. This was Zuko. Forget everything that came before. Forget whatever changes he seems to be attempting now. You've seen his worst. Remember it!
And an image surfaced in her mind, as if it had been waiting for her. The same face watching her now with such simmering focus had been on the ship that brought her here. He'd had her moved from the misery of the brig to an opulent room, and he had attempted to impose his will on her.
That's exactly what I expect. And that's how it's going to be.
Or what?
Or nothing. There is no 'or'.
Zuko had done plenty to prove to her just the kind of man he was. She had been an idiot to get involved with him before, but now she knew what he was really like, what he was really capable of.
And she would never forget.
Katara scowled and worked harder to snare him, slow him down enough to break his rhythm of strikes. But it wasn't working. He was too fast and too strong and she was tiring too quickly. He backed her around the fountain with a steady barrage of flames, then started closing in. Katara dodged behind one of the big planters, hoping to gain a few seconds to catch her breath, but Zuko darted around the other side so she immediately found herself face-to-face with him.
His broad chest was too close. She could smell his sweat-and-soap-and-more smell.
"Are you running away?" he asked, low and incredulous. His smirking mouth was a firm slash but his eyes... simmered. "What, are you scared?"
Tell me to stop if you're scared.
"Rraah!" Katara grabbed the fluid filling the ornamental cane grasses in the planter and whipped them down on him in a frenzy of whacking. He emitted a started cry and dropped to his knees under the assault, but Katara didn't let up, continuing to beat him down even as he threw his arms up to protect his head.
Then the canes were mostly broken and she was forced to stop. Zuko stayed there on his knees, breathing hard, his arms and neck covered in criss-crosses of raw, red lines. Katara glared down at him for a long moment, then spun on her heel and strode back across the courtyard, back to Iyuma, who was still watching wide-eyed from the steps. As she walked, she fought to steady her breathing and still the trembling of her hands.
Because Katara didn't want to admit it, she wanted to hide in the safety of her rage, but she was scared. She hadn't been scared all that time ago, when Zuko had tackled her on the dock and loomed over her in the blue crystal light with his eyes simmering just that way. That girl hadn't been scared at all. In fact, she'd answered his challenge head-on and kissed him before he could kiss her.
But that girl hadn't known what Katara knew now. It had been easy to be brave when she had never felt the anguish of heartbreak, when she'd had no idea that a kiss could open the door to such bitter devastation. Before, the look in Zuko's eyes had been a challenge she was excited to meet.
Now, it was a threat to her very existence. She sensed it, deep in her body. That look in Zuko's eyes - that was dangerous to her. Not because of any physical thing he might do to her, but because of the emotional wreckage he would leave in his wake.
Katara arrived at the far side of the fountain and glanced back. From over the top of the planter where the cane grass bristled in a thrashed and splintered mess, Zuko slowly rose into view to peer at her warily, rubbing the back of his head. His good cheek was almost as red as his scar. Katara folded her arms over her chest and glared at him with as much venom as she could muster.
"Did you just bend those plants?" Iyuma asked breathlessly from behind her. "How did you do that?"
Katara hesitated for a second longer to be sure Zuko wasn't about to come storming after her, then turned to her student. Yes. Definitely time for a break.
She sat on the steps and quickly explained about drawing water out of sea prunes, and about grasping the water without extracting it - a much trickier and subtler movement. Iyuma listened, nodding along excitedly.
"That's how healing is done, too. The linings of many organs are permeable but you have to be very careful not to tear up tissues or fuse them together." She fixed Katara with a dry look. "We should practice together later."
"Yeah, I'd like that," Katara said, half-listening.
She was covertly watching the firebender as he stalked across the courtyard, dabbing at his good ear. As he got closer, she could see that the lashes all over his arms and the back of his neck were swelling into blistered stripes. There was blood on his ear and a few other places. A couple of his knuckles were split. His stupid false topknot had been knocked crooked.
The sight filled her with vicious satisfaction. That's what you get, creep!
He had a surly look on his face, but his stare, though it was still fixed on her, had cooled back to something more normal.
"Resourceful," he growled as he stopped before them where they sat on the steps. "It won't be a surprise next time, though."
"No, but I got you pretty good this time." Katara shrugged, nonchalant to cover how she was still trying to settle the reckless feeling in her chest.
"This time." He twisted his mouth at her, peered down at the smear of blood on his fingertips, and then turned his gaze to Iyuma...
...who had lowered her eyes to the ground.
It only took Katara a second to follow their thoughts. She leapt to her feet before he could even open his mouth to speak.
"Don't you dare command her to heal you."
Zuko redirected a fresh glower to her. "I have a meeting. I can't go looking like I've been whipped by a deranged schoolmaster."
"She's not a slave. She's not even a servant," Katara snapped back, anger lending her fresh energy, stretching her spine straight and long. "Loska either. If you want a healing, you'll ask for it - respectfully - like a civilized person."
Zuko held her stare for a moment longer, his expression shifting. She wasn't sure how to read what remained when the annoyance had departed, but a pink spot was burning below his good eye.
Then, he looked back to Iyuma. And he bowed, hand over fist. It was a short bow, hardly a bend of his rigid spine - different from the deeper one he used to initiate their sparring - but it was more than Katara had seen him do for anyone but the Fire Lord himself.
"Healer Iyuma," he said in a low formal tone. "If you are willing to heal me, I would be very grateful."
"Say please."
Zuko's eyes flicked sideways to Katara. Simmered for two heavy heartbeats. The blush was deepening, spreading down his neck.
"Please."
There was a weighty pause, and then Iyuma released a tense breath and stood. "How could I deny such a polite request?" she said with forced brightness, drawing up some of the spilled water from the courtyard.
Zuko came to stand at the base of the steps so that she would not have to reach up so much to do her work, but he crossed his arms and turned fully to square up with Katara.
His look wasn't the same as it had been in the fight; the hunger was buried along with his ferocity for now. In its place was seething anger, but also something else, something quiet and patient. This unnerved Katara almost as much as the hunger had, so she glared back at him while her mind whirred.
He had just... obeyed her. No argument. Nothing but a look. He clearly wasn't happy about it, but he had accepted her defense of her people so easily that Katara wondered... Had he been waiting for her to do this? He had insisted she start teaching them waterbending, had pretty much bullied her into it. Was this all part of some plan of his?
And if it was a plan, what was the point?
"Are you going to take their collars off?" Zuko asked in a deceptively even tone. "Or are they protesting, too?"
"Iyuma-?"
"Get it off me." The glow in her water faded as her focus slipped. Iyuma took a breath and resumed quickly, gradually soothing away the welts on Zuko's upper arm. "With Loska, who knows. But I want it off as soon as possible. Please."
Katara felt a stab of guilt. She hadn't even thought about the collars, and it sickened her that she had almost stopped seeing them.
Zuko, on the other hand, seemed almost too prepared for this moment. He summoned a servant, apparently with just a glance toward the doors.
"Fetch the bolt-cutters."
It was done in minutes. Without ever explicitly saying so, Zuko insisted she pause the healing to have the locking mechanism snipped. And then, Iyuma wrenched the device off, flung it on the paving stones with a clatter, and ran her other hand up and down her throat. The skin beneath was not terribly chafed or bruised, but it had a pale, slightly clammy appearance.
Katara looked on, a little stunned. She didn't feel like she had just freed one of her people. She felt like Zuko had done it. But... she had told him Iyuma was free, and now Iyuma stood a little straighter, a bittersweet smile on her face. Abruptly, Katara shot Zuko a sideways glance.
He was watching her steadily, his mouth pulled minutely up on one side. When their eyes met, his darted away.
"I... should go prepare for my meeting," he said, all high and weird like he'd been caught at something.
"I'm not finished with your healing," Iyuma said abruptly. She turned her smile - the real, lopsided one - on him, drawing up more water. "Prince Zuko. It will only take a minute. Then you can go to your meeting and I'll get back to my lessons with the deranged schoolmaster."
"Funny," Katara groused, watching her work and trying to pick out nuances of how she was manipulating the water in the skin over his knuckle to knit it back together.
"In the Water Tribe," Zuko said quietly after a moment, "is it customary to poke fun at your leaders when they've just stuck their neck out for you?"
Iyuma's hands paused. She shot a surprised look at Katara, one that was probably mirrored back at her. "Well... no..."
"I'd hardly call standing up to you sticking my neck out," Katara huffed. "And are you really trying to call her out for your insult?"
He remained annoyingly calm. "No, I'm just asking whether disrespect is like a cultural difference or something. And I didn't insult you. I compared your attack to that of an overzealous disciplinarian."
Zuko stood very straight and peered down his nose at her, looking every bit a proper, if disheveled, prince. But Katara remembered his eyes when they were fighting. She folded her arms over her chest.
"Well? Did it work?" she snipped, staring hard at him. "Do you feel appropriately chastened?"
His cheek went a searing red, but he didn't look away. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "Yes."
"Good." Katara was determined not to read into his stare or his tone. Instead, she began watching Iyuma work over his shoulder as she healed the back of his neck and head. The healer's eyes remained on her task, but at length she shrugged and winced.
"Sorry, Katara. You're not deranged. I just thought it was funny."
"Seriously, don't worry about it. Prince Zuko is very sensitive and doesn't understand camaraderie." She met his eye as she went on in her most patronizing tone, smirking faintly as his calm expression darkened to a glower. "See, comrades are like friends, only-"
"I know what comrades are."
"No," Katara returned, anger creeping into her voice. "You don't. Because you want to do everything yourself, your way, without anyone else's help - and you especially don't want to listen to anyone else's ideas or advice when they're trying to tell you something important about the world that you just don't like!"
Zuko's eyebrow tipped back and he looked stricken. Then he scowled and opened his sneering mouth to sling something harsh back at her. Katara braced up. She was ready.
But then he stopped himself and shut his eyes and, with his face all twisted up like he'd bitten into something bitter but was determined to swallow it, he seemed to think for a moment. At length, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"That's... actually pretty accurate."
Katara gaped at him, the grudging acceptance of his dipped chin, not sure whether she was more shocked or infuriated. Now he listens? Now that all the damage is done? Now he wants to be-?!
"Yes," she recovered quickly. "It is."
He dropped his hand and frowned at her, and his yellow eyes were narrow with a mild hostility that was absent from his voice. "Would you like to attend the meeting? So you can share your ideas and advice?"
"You mean so more Fire Nobles can both literally and figuratively see me in my underwear? I'll pass, thanks."
The pink returned to his good cheek but he held his ground. "It's not a social call. I'm overseeing the organization of aid efforts in Harbor City." His eyes flicked sideways towards Iyuma and he dropped his voice so she wouldn't hear. "Lord Gan's network moves fast, but we have to be ready. We don't have a lot of time."
Katara nearly curled her lip and asked, but she immediately knew what he meant. The Fire Lord would send someone to arrest Zuko, probably soon. And probably a lot of someones.
And she nearly curled her lip and asked about his use of 'we', as if his stew of nobles and their slippery politics was somehow also her problem to deal with. She didn't have to drag herself through every miserable moment with him anymore. She wasn't his slave either.
"You don't have to come," he went on, not as quietly but still low, "but... you're ri-"
"If his highness doesn't require my presence," she said with a snide curl of her lip, "I shall stay home and replenish my chi."
His reaction was gratifying. His eyes flew wide open and his nostrils flared like she had slapped him in the face. His mouth drew up, tight and furious and surely about to spout out something horrible - some hateful part of the real him.
But he only snapped his head around to Iyuma. "Aren't you done yet?"
"Yup. All done." She took a long step away from him and smiled too wide. "Like it never happened."
"Hmph." Zuko shot Katara a dark look and stalked up the steps past her toward the house.
"Hey," Katara found herself barking as she glared up at his ramrod-straight back. He stopped short of the door. "Civilized people usually say 'thank you' when another person does something kind for them."
Zuko turned, his expression somehow even more thunderous. Heat radiated off him and color stained his unscarred cheek and ear. He looked like he wanted to rage at her with every proud fiber of spoiled prince he had in him, but instead he only breathed deeply and stared at her for a long moment, then fixed a marginally less furious look on Iyuma. His words were incongruously soft.
"Thank you."
Then, he whirled and marched into the shadows of the house.
Katara only watched him go, trying to understand the intense tangle of feelings tightening in her belly. She was disappointed that he hadn't lashed out - because that at least would have been familiar. This whole bottled-up-maelstrom thing he was doing was unsettling.
Fine, so maybe he was exerting some basic control over his temper, and maybe he was trying to invite her into a more active role in his efforts to create unrest, but none of that really amounted to anything in the big scheme of things. This was all just temporary. It wouldn't last.
He'd show his real face again. And when he did, she would teach him what overzealous discipline really meant.
"Okay."
She looked back to find Iyuma with her arms crossed, her cheeks reddening. She was staring up at the sky, her eyes overly wide. Katara stepped down to the paving stones beside her. "Okay?"
"I mean, okay, I get it. I get how you'd..." Iyuma shrugged and waved a hand at the door, "...with him."
Katara immediately flushed, feeling like she'd been caught even though she hadn't presently been doing anything wrong. Had she seen the way he was looking at her earlier? Was it something she'd said? But Iyuma only rubbed her fingers up and down her throat and went on before Katara could formulate a response.
"But I really don't get how you boss him around like that. Even when he's being decent, he's still so intimidating. I'd be terrified he was going to take that temper out on me."
Katara scoffed... but then thought about it. She pulled up a stream of water and began slowly passing it to Iyuma in an ever-widening circle, a slow warm-up.
"I thought he was intimidating when I first met him, too. I wasn't trained then, and all I could think to do was follow my brother's advice. 'Show no fear.' It was only later, as I really came into my strength, that Zuko actually didn't intimidate me anymore. Because I knew I was strong enough to beat him."
She adjusted the posture so the water would begin a sharper orbit, glittering slush hissing through the air. Iyuma mirrored her movements and the ice particles began firming together, hardening. Then the ice broke again into water.
"That's what this training is for. You don't need to be intimidated by guys like Zuko, because you have it in you to beat them, too. It just takes practice and dedication. For now, though, focus on entering your flow state. A master waterbender lets fear come and go as easily as we let this ice shift to water and back again - because sometimes fear serves us, but we never serve it."
Katara led the lesson as smoothly and confidently as she could, all the while stifling the persistent feeling she was a fraud. Because the fear in her wasn't coming and going, melting off clean as ice. It sank into her belly and sent out sharp crystalline fingers that crackled as she moved.
Tell me to stop if you're scared.
And pricked at her in troubling, shameful places.
.
.
The Fire Prince sat perfectly straight and still as his palanquin bore him to the cartographer's shop and, several hours later, back again towards the villa. His face was perhaps grimmer than usual, but any who saw him saw only a young leader who was now widely known to have taken on a mighty task.
And he was doing it! There had been food handed out for three days now, and the wonder of it raised the spirits of even the most dejected. Their prince had come for them. Some children ran alongside the palanquin to wave at him, and he was even seen to raise a hand in solemn acknowledgment.
But internally, Zuko was seething.
It had taken continuous effort to contain his anger while Lord Gan and the others who had assembled helped him work through plans for the coming days. In particular, Zuko had felt himself on the verge of ignition when Lord Gan had stayed back to produce a sealed scroll.
"I pray you'll forgive a beleaguered husband's request, your highness. My lady wife insisted that I see this passed securely along to your princess."
"What is it?" Zuko had demanded, frowning down at what could clearly have been delivered by courier or hawk or directly if Katara hadn't been so determined to lash out at him in every possible way.
"With ladies and their secrets, one can never be entirely certain," Lord Gan said, arching his eyebrows, "except that to intrude would draw dire reciprocity."
Zuko, having recently had a brush with Katara's reciprocity, had glowered a moment longer before finally tucking the scroll into his sash. Not that he expected Katara to be especially glad to hear from Lady Gan, but if she had made a potentially beneficial ally, he didn't want to interfere.
Because, despite how incredibly difficult it had been to bite back his wrath this afternoon, Zuko was still intent on making things right. She was not going to drive him off his course, no matter what she did. It was almost a mantra hammering through his head, a purpose he needed to be consciously aware of at all times so that he would not fall back on anger and blow everything up - again - and so that he could pounce on opportunities when they presented themselves.
He had already met with some success today, even if there had been... setbacks.
Getting the collars off those two healers was a good step, but Katara standing up for them was the real victory. She was coming back. She was almost herself again. Her full strength would return in time, but she hadn't even needed it to beat him today.
Zuko dug his fingers hard into the silk over his thighs and glared at the street ahead. He felt so many things, and it was difficult to stop anger from dominating so much that the other feelings sizzled out of existence.
He was furious, and not just over her... punishment.
Because that's what that had been. She had read the look on his face and she had punished him for it.
He just hadn't seen it coming at all. He'd cut her off behind the planter and thought she would snipe back at him, make some bold riposte, and the fight would go on. He'd thought she would strike him down if she could...
...but he hadn't expected the cornered animal flash in her eyes, and he hadn't expected the canes, and he hadn't expected the way he would feel afterward.
She hadn't just beaten him. She had demeaned him, had put him on his knees and then shamed and commanded him in front of her subject and any servants who might have been watching. He had a right to be furious. A part of him was positively foaming at the mouth over it.
The hissing voice had been breathing up the side of his neck for hours. A true Fire Prince submits to no less than the Fire Lord, and she would have you bleat your pleases and thank yous to peasants!
But the response was already there, had been there shockingly right from the start, and it felt solid and true. You humbled her. Now she humbles you. It is the only way to restore balance.
In the stunned moments while he had recovered behind that planter, Zuko had felt a strange sort of release. Like some terrible pressure had been vented out of him and he could think more clearly. He could refocus on what was important.
Cornered animal eyes. She'd been frightened. Zuko had frightened her. And it hadn't been his fighting that did it - he knew that, had seen her excited gone-in-a-blink grin. It had been his desire, leering out at her like a hulking predator in a flimsy cage. A monstrous, greedy part of him that salivated at just the memory of her. A wolf-tail, a flash of teeth and skin, and it was there pressing its face through the bars at her.
Zuko had earned that thrashing, every shameful stripe of it.
He had still been mad about it, though. Offended, ashamed, embarrassed, guilty... chastened... it was more feelings than he could immediately process. So, he skated right past them and, when Katara presented him with an opportunity to prove he could be, as she put it, a civilized person, he had been quick to take it. Never mind the hissing voice, and never mind appropriate comportment for princes. She gave him a chance to prove that he could respect her and her people despite his past words and actions. He had to take it.
Of course... she hadn't meant it as an opportunity, he knew that. More likely, she considered it a hurdle that would trip him up. She expected to sting his pride and force him to give up the confrontation. That's why she kept pushing.
Say please.
It should not have given him a chill. It should not have made him want her again, want to prove himself more.
The audacity! She dares to command a prince! Next she'll demand you grovel on your knees for her amusement!
And why not, Prince Zuko? She spent a great deal of time on her knees for the amusement of the Fire Court. You benefited significantly when you traded off her dignity. What price will you pay to restore it?
And Zuko had realized in that moment, as he met her hard eyes and the factions in his mind warred endlessly, that he may have to grovel. If that was what she wanted. If that was what it would take. He would be forced to swallow his pride and do it.
Katara had certainly swallowed hers for long enough. Bowing her head and blanking her face and sitting so terribly still...
But the guilt he felt and his logical understanding of what he was doing didn't mean he had to like doing it. For all that her challenges were as exciting as they were infuriating, the thought of just submitting himself to them filled him with alarm - because he sensed to do so would put an essential part of himself at risk.
The palanquin swayed as they turned down the final street that would lead them back to the villa, but Zuko hardly saw anything in front of him. He did not notice the cluster of people gathered at the end of the street, concealing some kind of commotion.
The sound of firebending ahead seemed to come out of nowhere, though there had been ample warning.
Sprawling across the street before the palanquin, a crowd of people in ragged clothing stood shouting around a unit of royal guards. The commander at the head of the group was bellowing to be heard over them.
"The Fire Lord will hear of this interference! Get back!"
He bent another slash of flame at the crowd and people darted away in terror, but more people filled in the gaps. Some were caught in the press, trying to escape but trapped by the many tight-packed bodies behind them.
Zuko leapt to his feet and the palanquin shuddered as the bearers adjusted to his shifting weight.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
Voices rose in a cacophony of responses; he couldn't understand a word.
"Clear a path," he called, and gestured for the palanquin to be brought forward.
The lieutenant of the squadron, still shooting sideways glances even as the crowd quieted and drew back, stood at attention and fixed Zuko with a stern face only slightly diminished by the sweat dotting his brow.
"Prince Zuko! By order of the Fire Lord, we are to accompany you back to the palace."
Several onlookers shouted their outrage, but Zuko's mind was elsewhere. There were only a dozen or so of them. His own guard detail was a little over half that. It should have made him feel better to know his plan was working - his father had underestimated him - but it just made him sad and angry.
"Go back and inform the Fire Lord that I respectfully decline to return," he said, still standing high on the palanquin. "I am needed here in Harbor City."
A number of the people watching cheered, and the lieutenant's eyes flicked to the sides again. "The Fire Lord's order is not a request..."
"Neither is mine." Zuko paused a beat and watched the man's eyes widen as a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. "Go now, lieutenant."
The lieutenant seemed momentarily confused. He glanced at the guards behind him, who shot him nervous side-eyes.
This was a part of Zuko's plan as well. His father had expected him to realize he was in trouble and just come along - like the chastened coward you are - so he probably had not specified that they were to use force against him. And royal guards were not likely to err on the side of attacking the prince.
Zuko remained calm, but internally, he seethed. He was not a coward. He was not weak. His father...
"Defiance won't end well for you or your soldiers," he prodded. He stood looming over them on the palanquin, and he tapped into the fury that had been riding him all day. Primed it, just in case. Strategically, it would be best if this did not turn into a fight, but he kind of hoped it would.
It would feel so good, he knew, to let it out.
At length, the lieutenant cleared his throat and affirmed the message and led his squadron back up the street toward Caldera. The crowd cheered and made a few jeering parting shots. Zuko resumed his seat and the palanquin continued on to the villa.
The next attempt was not going to end so peacefully. But Zuko's plans were in place, his orders were made. All there was to do was wait.
Well, that and deliver Lady Gan's message.
Zuko heaved a few calming breaths, centering his thoughts on his mission. He would not fail.
Back at the villa, he veered away from the side of the sprawling house that was sort of his and into the side of the house that was sort of hers. He hadn't been here before, and a servant had to show him the way to the door to her suite. Zuko laid his hand on the door to slide it open.
And stopped.
Ladies and their secrets. Cornered animal eyes.
You can't seriously be saying you weren't aware there would be rumors.
He stepped back and knocked, swallowing hard past the anxious swell in his throat. It was so easy to misstep. Easy as an unthinking habit.
The door slid a few inches open and Katara's handmaid peeked out at him before dropping her eyes.
"Prince Zuko," she said, just above a whisper. "Princess Katara is resting."
"It'll only take a minute. She can talk to me through the door if she wants."
"Yes, your highness. I will wake her."
Zuko frowned at the closed door for the minutes it took for that to happen. It was late in the afternoon now. And she had just been sleeping through the day? He supposed that made sense, since she was still recovering and had fought hard this morning. He should probably even be relieved that she was taking her rest so seriously. Still, it raised some flags in the back of Zuko's mind.
But when her face appeared through the (much narrower) crack in the door, he forgot all about that.
"What do you want?" Katara growled, looking very much like she begrudged him every second of her time he was wasting.
Zuko's eyes narrowed, but he withdrew the scroll from his sash and held it out to her. "Lady Gan sent you a message."
Her eyes cut down to the scroll and she plucked it out of his hand, snatched it back through the door, and cracked it open to read it.
"What does it say?" Zuko asked instead of trying to peer through the crack at it.
"Girl stuff. Flowers. Don't worry about it." She crunched up the scroll in her hand and refocused on him. "Is that it?"
Zuko frowned, even though being excluded from girl stuff was probably safer, but he did not leave. He looked into the couple of inches of her face he could see through the door, her suspicious eyes and hard mouth. Her hair, loose for sleeping. The robe she had clutched up to her throat.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "For what I... for looking... for during training. I didn't mean to... make you uncomfortable."
Not uncomfortable, his brain helpfully reminded him, afraid. You made her afraid.
But if he said that, Katara would take it as a challenge. And he didn't want to challenge her. Not about this, anyway.
She just glared back at him, her expression unchanging, unyielding. Zuko rubbed the back of his neck and glanced to the side.
"Listen, I know I haven't exactly been a good person to you-"
She snorted. He grimaced and forced himself to continue. It was an understatement. He knew that. He tamped down his own resentment and excuses.
"-and I know I owe you a lot of apologies that are probably more important. But this... I'm not going to overstep on this. Stuff might show on my face sometimes. I can't always control that, but I am in control of my actions. And I know-"
His heart rebelled, throbbed into his throat and forced him to swallow the fractured pieces back down. The rage rose up like blood out of a killing wound, but he swallowed that too.
"I know it's over, and it's not coming back. I know that's my fault. And I know nothing is gonna happen and I won't ever... try anything. I just want to make sure you know. That I know... all that." He teetered lamely, then refocused. "You're safe from me."
He paused, hesitating under her narrowing glare. She didn't believe him.
Of course she didn't believe him. He had told her one time with all the passion in his heart that she would never be a slave. No promise he made would ever hold weight for her again, no matter how much he meant it.
Her silence was damning. It judged every word out of his mouth and found it wanting. Zuko shut his eyes and stamped down his pride and forced out the last thing. He had taken so much power from her. The least he could do was put some of it back in her hands.
"But don't hesitate to put me in my place again if it looks like I need it."
"I won't."
Her response was so immediate, it probably should have offended him. But it didn't. She was right to be ready. Zuko only nodded and looked down and to the side.
Katara didn't speak for a long moment, and he began to think she would just shut the door and dismiss him again, not even dignify his apology with a response. Anger and sadness warred in him. He was supposed to be a prince, above reproach, and he had just given her a free pass to lay into him however she liked. She could at least acknowledge that he was apologizing to her!
But, then again, she didn't owe him anything. The debt was his, and if she felt like this wasn't a worthy way to repay it, it was on him to figure out something else.
And he would.
He was not looking, so Zuko didn't see the emotions play over her face and Katara did not feel forced to conceal them. Her surprise and fury, muddied with pain and fear. She was examining his down-turned expression, the way it twisted and reddened in what appeared to be anger and embarrassment.
How hard was it for him to squeeze out a simple apology?
And yet, she hadn't expected it at all. She had figured the subject was closed; he would avoid bringing it up altogether and leave her to deal with her feelings about it on her own. She'd gotten her hits in, after all. She had felt like that score was at least kind of settled.
But apparently Zuko thought she deserved an apology, too. And reassurances that he wouldn't try anything - which was mostly just reassuring that he was oblivious to the real thing frightening her, the sneaky force inside her trying to destroy her. And he wanted her to know that she had done the right thing, that he knew he'd deserved overzealous discipline and he might deserve it again.
He had obeyed her and been polite to Iyuma today. And his admission that it was over, that he was at fault and nothing was going to happen - it was comforting, it was a relief to hear him say it out loud... but it also made her stomach drop weirdly. Like the ground was shifting under her feet.
This... this wasn't that boy she had loved, and it wasn't the cruel prince either. This was something new. Someone new. Zuko's fresh new leaf unfurling.
Katara's bitter resentment remained, but she was fighting her own internal battle. She wanted to hit him, drive him away because Zuko was dangerous. His state of change only made him more unpredictable; there was no telling who he would be from day to day. She should refuse to forgive him and let him wallow in the guilt and shame like he deserved. That was probably a good motivator for him, actually. She screwed up her face into a scowl and drew a deep breath-
-and watched his expression shifting. The anger faded, and in its wake there was something so much more complicated. So much harder to read. Sadness, and patience, and acceptance. Determination. It reminded her immediately of how he had first looked at her during Iyuma's healing, after he had yielded to her. When he had said please - not really to Iyuma, but to her.
From her open mouth, that sneaky force snuck something horrible out.
"I guess you're forgiven," she said stiffly, then rushed on to mitigate the damage, "this one time, for staring at me like a creep. Since you've apparently remembered your manners. However long that's going to last."
Zuko snapped his eyes up to stare at her. He hadn't really expected even an inch of absolution, and to so suddenly receive it was startling.
She didn't look all that forgiving. Whatever she saw on his face, her scowl tightened to something even more severe. "Don't think it means anything. The day's not over yet. You'll probably screw up again by dusk."
Zuko straightened and wiped the tiny smile off his face. But he still felt it, warm in his chest. "Yeah. Probably."
She narrowed her eyes and shut the door in his face with a snap.
Zuko went about his evening, planning and remembering and struggling, but he kept feeding that flicker of warmth. It twinkled in his chest, mending some places and stinging some others, but it was good. He felt almost... good. Not good like he felt when he let his anger loose; this was something cleaner. Purer. Better.
Katara, on the other hand, was haunted by that look that had shone so briefly from his face. The wide brightness of his eyes - which had been narrowed for so long. The soft upward tilt of his mouth. Clear and sweet and... hopeful.
It was like the sun. She had looked directly at it, and now it was burned behind her eyes.
Who was that?
She didn't know. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to even think about it. So she thought instead about the note crumpled in her fist. The artful swoop of Lady Gan's calligraphy.
Salutations,
Since our previous discussion of the flora in noble gardens was not rich in useful details, I thought you might like to know whom among my acquaintance was most likely to keep their blooms with care and respect - those listed first below. The second list tend toward negligence. But to be sure, a visit to the gardens in the third would reveal urgently thirsty foliage.
Kindest regards from your humble servant
The first and third lists were short, but the second was much longer - in total, dozens of names tidily cataloged for Katara's reference. Family names. Names Katara remembered, because she had knelt in every one of their houses, pouring their tea.
There would be no more sleeping, now. She paced her rooms, to Loska and Iyuma's annoyance and to Sian's ill-concealed distress, then shoved the tea table out of the way and made Iyuma practice the first sixty movements until darkness had fully fallen. Finally, she readied herself for her true purpose, what she had stayed here to do.
What her entire journey since she left the South Pole had prepared her to do.
.
.
Pawe woke in the cold hours before dawn to a man standing over her pallet, and her silent terror screamed through her the same as it always did when this had happened every night.
But then she made out his face by the bright moon's light that seeped through the kitchen window. He wore wolf paint and his eyes, even in the night, shone blue.
"I'm Katto of the Southern Tribe," he whispered to her in a very soft voice - rather feminine, though Pawe was too preoccupied to remark on it. "I've come to get you out of this awful place. Are you ready?"
Pawe stared up at him, clutching the sheet to her chin for a long moment. She had had this dream before - had cruelly woken from it hundreds of times - but it had never been a Southerner who came to whisk her away. It had always been one of the men of her own tribe - Yukko or Harook or Chutek or even Master Pakku. Every man she knew or even vaguely remembered had appeared in her dreams to whisk her away from this misery.
So. Either she had made this Southerner up, or he was real.
Gingerly, perhaps to prevent herself from waking prematurely, Pawe sat up and eased herself off the pallet. The warrior - Katto - stood a little shorter than her, and was skinny as a boy.
Hardly the stuff of dreams, chortled a nearly-forgotten voice in the back of her mind.
The boy was staring at her belly. For a few seconds, Pawe felt all the shame and horror and desperation of the past months oozing slimy down her spine. But the warrior swiftly met her eye again with the most earnest, compassionate look she had ever seen on a man's face.
"It's going to be okay, now," he said, and he said it with such conviction that she believed him. "Just stay close to m-"
Pawe did not mean to hug him, but she threw her arms around his narrow shoulders and gasped silently against his wolf-tail for a moment before she could start listening to him again. He was real. Not a dream at all. His chest felt strange against hers - not like any of the men's chests she had felt - and perhaps that was a comfort as well.
But more than that, he was steady, and he held her tightly until she was, too.
Then, Katto guided her out of the nook behind the kitchen, and out of the house and through the manicured grounds. He kept a gentle but urgent pace, and seemed as if by magic to know where every guard was. By the sinking moon's light, he led her away from the yellow lanterns of the crater city and up a rocky slope, then along an overgrown path to a pass in the jagged teeth of the volcano.
From out of the shadows swaddling the massive rocks came the voices of ghosts.
"Pawe!"
"Thank Tui - I was sure I saw them kill you."
"Dakata? Keyu?"
"I'm here too! Oh, Pawe..."
They embraced her, and their arms were thinner, and their eyes were haunted, but it was them. They were alive. At least the eight of them had survived.
"Dawn isn't far off," Katto said quietly, "and we have a ways to walk. We need to keep moving."
He led them to a dramatic drop-off. Just peeking over the edge made Pawe shudder. But Katto produced a rope and, tying it round a boulder a bit off the edge, dropped it down to where it vanished on the steep slope below.
"I can't do this," Keyu whimpered.
Katto only looked at her and smiled a vary kind smile. "Yes, you can. I won't let you fall."
Pawe knew that every other woman present was assessing this boy's skinny arms and narrow shoulders and harboring the same doubts. Boys were sometimes like this. Overly confident. It gave them all a sudden feeling of unease - now that it was too late to do anything but follow him. Why did they send this boy? Where were the men?
But then Katto dropped into a bending stance and drew a massive stream of spring water from deep in the dry ground below. He swept his arms and swayed to the rhythm of push and pull and his stream formed into a slide alongside the rope.
Pawe reflected that this display of power at least explained why Katto was the one chosen for this mission. He must have been some sort of prodigy.
...and yet, there was something off about the way he smiled at them. It was difficult to put a finger on...
"All you have to do is hold the rope and go slowly down the slide," he was explaining. "If you get in trouble, I'll be ready to catch you. But I think you've got this."
He stood by the boulder, watching them and occasionally glancing back down the path as they descended one by one. Pawe settled on the slide with Dakata's help. Then, with her heart in her throat and her hands wrapped to protect them from rope-burn, she eased her way down. It was terrifying, all of fifty feet nearly vertical before the slope eased. Then, with a long stretch of slide remaining, the rope ended.
But Keyu and Ulka and the others were waiting at the bottom, ready to catch her. Pawe drew a deep breath and let go.
Dakata followed shortly after and they all stood in the little clearing with the big flat rock jutting from yet another (much less deadly-looking) cliff. Day was near breaking, easing the deep darkness of night with a softness that seemed not to belong in this land of savages. Pawe sat to rest on a stone bench, embraced all around by her sisters, and watched as the sky grew green.
"I can't believe we're out," she managed.
"We're just out of the city. We're still here."
"At least we're here, though."
"Where are the warriors? This kid is a great waterbender, but I'll feel better when we get back to the others."
"It might be just him."
They were all silent after that, mulling over that panic-inducing possibility.
The rope went slithering back up the cliff, and then the warrior came down, riding the slide on his feet like an absolute demon. The ice broke down behind his heels so that, by the time he reached the bottom, it was just a wave that he smoothly redirected back into the earth from which he'd drawn it.
When he looked at them, his eyes were bright in his wolf paint. The rope, looped up and hanging from his shoulder, he tucked into the bushes of the verdant forest they had arrived in. Then, he led them toward the next path.
"This way. It isn't far now. Be as quiet as you can when we get to the villa. It's safe there but, you know, it'll just be easier if we can avoid questions altogether for a little longer."
Pawe shared a glance with her sisters because the daylight had revealed something none of them had noticed in the dark.
The boy was wearing a collar just like the ones locked around their own necks.
They hesitated... but what could they do? Climb back up the cliff? Slink back into the beds where they had imagined for months they would be strangled or scorched some night?
Pawe led the way. The dream had brought her this far. She only prayed she would not wake now.
Katto led them through a hidden door in a stone wall and then through a lightly wooded garden where dew hung from cultivated grasses. He brought them at last to a door at the back of the big house that slid open as he approached.
More ghosts peered out, one harrowed by worry and the other grinning like an ice cat.
Loska embraced Keyu at once, and Iyuma ushered them all in with whispers and tight, fierce hugs. Pawe held her cheeks, so happy to see her niece that tears started streaming down her face. Then they were all crying, all clutching to each other as if afraid they would be snatched apart again at any moment. The door slid shut behind them and, for a moment, they all let out their long-held breaths.
At length, Pawe looked around the room. It was a rather lavish bedroom with a large bed and an open door through which she spied a low table surrounded with cushions. Closer at hand, there was a vanity, where the warrior stood with a Fire Nation servant. He accepted a towel from her and wiped the paint from his face in a few hard strokes. Without it, his face was even more youthful - round in the jaw and lips in a way the paint had concealed. His soft smile as he peered back at the whispered reunion was pleased and proud.
"Sian, do you think you could get extra food for my guests without tipping anybody off?"
"Of course, Princess Katara. Right away."
The servant left, but the room behind her went very still. Katto took in their faces and seemed to hesitate.
"The Southern Princess makes a pretty good boy, doesn't she?" Iyuma asked sweetly.
"A good pretty-boy," Pawe quipped automatically. She shot Iyuma a startled shadow of a grin (Can I still grin this way with her? This used to be me... Is it still? Could it be again?) but quickly looked back at the princess. To her relief, she seemed to take no offense.
"Yeah, heh... That was kind of the consensus in the resistance training camp, too," she said as she raked her fingers through the short hair below her wolf tail. "Sorry for the deception but Loska pointed out that you might not trust a woman to have the skill to get you out."
"A strange woman in a collar, I said."
"Yes. Thank you, Loska," she said dryly, "for all of your input."
Iyuma snickered, and many of the rest of them shared a flash of amusement. It was such a true thing about Loska - they could all imagine her hectoring this strange warrior with her many concerns.
And she was strange, Katto or Katara. Her hair, cut short as a boy's. Her thin, muscled build. A bender, a fighter. She stood apart from them, and it was suddenly clear to Pawe how she wished to belong but did not. Could not. Because she was Water Tribe, but she wasn't one of their tribe.
But Pawe also remembered how she had hugged this girl in the nook behind the kitchen, how tightly Katara had held her back. Not trying to comfort or protect her the way a warrior would, she realized now - but knowing in her heart the fear and despair and shame Pawe must be feeling.
Katara might not be a sister, but she was one of them in a way that truly mattered.
The princess was assessing them anew. "I want to get to know all of you, but it's going to have to wait a few more hours. I need to get cleaned up and change, but please go ahead and relax in the sitting room. Iyuma and Loska can answer any questions you have, but I promise that you're safe here, and you are free."
Free. Safe. Stunning to hear such words spoken aloud, to be ripped from dreams and made real.
They filed out and settled around the low table in the sitting room, talking quietly, and the Fire Nation servant returned balancing a massive tray of food - fresh fruits and dried spiced meats, nuts and seeds and pitchers of cold water. A pot of tea and a stack of cups. She settled it on the table, then went about pulling pallets out of the room's artfully concealed cupboards. The whole time, she was smiling faintly, and she met Iyuma's eyes and shared a little excited grin.
"Everyone, this is Sian," Iyuma said pleasantly. "She's technically Princess Katara's handmaid but she's agreed to look out for you while Katara's out, so if Loska or I aren't here, you can ask her for whatever you need."
"Like a ship to get out of here?" Keyu muttered.
"La, I hope so," Iyuma said. "I don't think Katara wants to leave anybody behind but, eventually, she's going to have to do something."
Loska was shaking her head, but before she could say whatever was on her mind, Katara reappeared in the bedroom doorway, dressed in clean Fire Nation clothes.
The boy was gone. In his place was a young woman with breasts and a waist - which was very visible considering the scantness of her top. Her kind eyes suddenly made sense in her soft face. The wolf-tail, everyone observed, remained. Between her hands, water streamed almost absently.
"Alright. Who wants their collar struck off before I go?"
A few voices volunteered, but one drown them out at once.
"What," Loska sniped, "and their head with it? No. Go burn through all that Yang energy and come back when your head is clear. The collars can wait."
"But-"
"He's going to summon you any minute. If you're too tired to fight, what good are you to him?"
The princess shot her a scathing look and folded her arms over her chest, sending the water off into a potted plant. Distantly, a rhythmic sound of booming began. Katara rolled her eyes and threw up her arms as if Loska was responsible for whatever disturbance this was.
"You had to bring him up," she grumbled.
"Who's this now?" The fear in Keyu's voice resonated through them all.
"It's not as bad as you're thinking," Iyuma put in quietly.
"The Fire Prince," Loska enunciated, glower fixed on Katara.
"Fine. I'm going."
"He hasn't summoned you yet."
"What else do you think all the booming is for?" The princess stalked across the sitting room toward the outer door, then turned back to shake a finger at Loska and hiss, "And keep your voice down! Machi will hear you. We don't need her sticking her nose in here right now."
Pawe watched the door slam shut behind her, then turned her slow, disbelieving stare to her cousin. The other women around the table, too, sat wondering if they had slipped from a bad situation to a worse one.
"The... Fire Prince?"
Iyuma only shrugged and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. "Honestly, he's mostly just loud."
.
.
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AN: This may be the last update for a little while, so I wanted to make sure and leave you in a good spot. It shouldn't be four years before the next one, but I've got a house to build and a brain to rest. Maybe two weeks? A month? I don't know exactly - navigating these emotional beats has been tricky! But, regardless of any delays, good stuff is coming. Take care!