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Zuko stalked down yet another flight of steel stairs and along an empty corridor, still too angry to consider where he was going. As long as it wasn't the infirmary, he didn't care.
He had actually spent a fair bit of time already exploring Azula's ship, and he supposed he would be spending even more time that way now that he couldn't watch Navigator Chon plot courses without drawing attention to himself. Between that and talking to Katara, Zuko felt like a fish swimming circles in an ever-shrinking pool.
She thought she was so right about everything. She refused to listen, refused to see things as they were. And then when her attack failed, she just stared up at him with that hurt, frightened look, as if the only decent thing he could do now was just hold still and die...
Zuko bared his teeth, turned on the spot, and punched the nearest wall. His fist left two tiny knuckle dents and a sooty smudge but the bang of impact was quickly swallowed by the drone of the engines.
He must have wandered to the rear of the ship, one of the lower levels. In his old ship, there was hardly a place where one could go to get away from the sound of the engines. Not so with a royal cruiser. His quarters, when he cared to visit them, were perfectly quiet. It was ideal for meditation, but meditation did not serve Zuko now as it had weeks ago. Meditation was frustrating because even in the perfect silence of his sitting room or the soothing glow of his bedchamber, there was an anxious hum in the back of his mind, always pushing toward the fore. It made him itch to move.
So Zuko stalked on down the corridor, opening and closing his fist by his side. His knuckles ached dully, but it didn't matter. It was actually kind of a relief to have such a simple sensation nagging at him. Better that than the tangle of emotions he didn't dare face.
He reached the top of one of the mid-ships stairwells and found himself at the entryway to the brig. A steel double-door stood shut, guarded by four soldiers - two inside and two out. It was late now, and the order had already been made hours ago to relocate Katara to a real cell with all haste, so there was no reason for Zuko to go in.
Except… Zuko could look in to be sure that preparations were being made as he commanded, couldn't he? Yes. Princes did things like that.
Mind made up, he stalked toward the doors. He didn't even need to give the command. The guards mumbled his name and hurriedly opened the way.
Beyond, there was a well-lit corridor studded with guards standing at attention. This facility, he had learned from Azula, was specially designed to hold benders - the Avatar in particular. Where Zuko's ship had been outfitted with a simple row of cells, Azula's boasted this high-security block complete with solid steel walls, dual-point locking doors, and dehumidified ventilation.
He had come here only once before. Azula had led him to the door at the end of the block and slid the panel away from a small window so that he could see that the Avatar was secure. The boy sat cross-legged at the center of the room, eyes closed and fists touching in meditation. He was chained arms and legs to the floor. There was enough slack for him to move around, but not to stand.
Zuko remembered wondering if they had had those manacles specially made to fit the boy's slim wrists or if child-sized cuffs were common enough that that was not necessary. He had said nothing, though.
"Prince Zuko," said the captain presently in command. He emerged from an office to one side, wide-eyed. "We didn't know to expect you, sir. What can we do for you?"
"Show me the cell you've prepared for- the waterbender."
"Of course, your highness." If the captain noticed Zuko's near-slip, he did not let on. He only moved to one side to allow Zuko the lead and, from a step behind, guided him to one of the doors. It looked exactly like all of the others.
Inside, there was a simple pallet on the floor - and chains. A set of manacles waited before the door, each attached to a long chain that spanned the width of the room and vanished into a small hole in either wall. Where the manacles sat, there were ankle cuffs set into the floor.
"What is this?" Zuko asked, gripping the doorframe.
"Oh, the chains, sir? Those will restrain the prisoner when we bring her drinking water or her waste pail. She will kneel here and then-" The captain stepped to one side of the door and pulled a lever Zuko hadn't noticed. There was a clank of steel and the long chains began retracting through the holes in the walls. They stopped abruptly and the captain righted the lever. "It's designed to pull just until the waterbender's arms are fully extended - no farther."
Zuko stared at the cuffs on the floor. A memory came unbidden of Katara bathing with her bucket of water in the barracks. He remembered the first night he had warmed the water for her, when she had moaned that way, and a rush of longing came crashing though him. Longing for her, and that dim room, and the prickling awareness he felt with his back to her while she went about her task. Even her small splashing noises, he missed them.
And now he was going to throw her in this metal box and she would only ever touch water while she was chained like a criminal. There would be no bathing here - unless one of the guards went in with a scrub brush. Which was unthinkable. Who had he been fooling? Katara would never forgive him for this. He couldn't keep her here.
But he couldn't very well keep her in his quarters, either. There were a great many reasons to dismiss that as a bad idea, not the least of which being that Katara didn't want to be anywhere near him.
"Is… everything to your satisfaction, your highness?"
Zuko's jaw tightened and he stepped away from the cell. No, she didn't want to be near him. She'd made that very clear. But then, she'd made it very clear back when they shared that barracks, too. Maybe a few days in here would help her develop a clearer perspective of her options.
"Er, Prince Zuko?"
"It will do." Zuko turned on the captain, and the man snapped to attention. "Where is her brother?"
The captain's eyes flicked about the corridor for an instant. "Oh! The warrior, yes. This way, sir."
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Sokka hadn't seen more than one limb of a human being in five days. He knew that five days had passed not because of any change in the dim lighting - it never got any dimmer - but because he had paid enough attention to the rhythm of his meals to know he received three meals each day. It was usually a fishy-spicy-ricey mix that he might have enjoyed in other circumstances, and after the third meal there was a long period of inactivity during which the viewing panel would regularly slide open as guards checked up on him.
As an experienced prisoner of the Fire Nation, Sokka was well aware that this was much more security than was actually needed to contain him. He tried to explain this waste of resources to the arm that shoved his food bowl through the slot at the bottom of the door, but that guy clearly didn't care about efficiency.
He knew Toph was in the next cell over because he had seen her being carried there when they were all brought in. Her feet had already been bandaged and her face was drawn. Sokka knew it wasn't all pain that made her look like that, but he couldn't forgive her that easily. Accident or not, she had almost killed his sister. It was Toph's fault they were up to their eyeballs in security instead of roaming the seas cooking up a scheme to take down the Fire Lord.
Not that he could talk to her even if he wanted to. The wall separating their cells was completely solid.
Sokka had never gone a week without talking to anyone before. It did awful things to his mind. It made him think a lot of dark, pragmatic thoughts. Like, it wasn't just Toph's fault that Katara had been hurt. Like, if he had had the guts to kill Zuko instead of locking him up, none of this would have happened. Like, if Sokka hadn't tried to rescue Katara on that bison, Hakoda could have taken her with him when he escaped.
And now, Katara was alone and hurt somewhere on this ship. Maybe Zuko had her, that slime. None of the guards would tell him. They just gave him meals and looked in on him to be sure he wasn't - what - escaping through the steel walls?
So he didn't startle when he heard the panel in the door slide open, even though it was an odd time for a check. He just sat still, his back against the wall, face hidden in the comforting darkness between his folded arms and drawn-up legs. There were some indistinct words and the panel shut.
But then the door clanked and swung open and Sokka scrambled to his feet. Framed in the doorway, angry as ever, stood Zuko. Sokka was torn between the grudge he held against this guy and the relief of seeing another person. The grudge won.
Sokka took a step closer and raised one threatening finger. "Where is my sister? If you've done anything to her, I swear I'm gonna-"
A soldier standing just behind Zuko rapped a billy club against the doorframe. "Watch your tongue, prisoner. You're addressing the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation and you'll show him the proper respect if you know what's good for you."
Zuko held up a hand and the soldier - a captain - backed off. Still glaring at Sokka, he gave Zuko a short bow and moved out of sight. Zuko stepped into the room and the door closed behind him.
"Katara's been recovering in the infirmary, but she'll join you in the brig soon. Tomorrow morning, probably."
"I want to see her. Now."
Zuko narrowed his eyes. "Don't make the mistake of thinking you can demand whatever you want from me. This is my world. Your tribe isn't hanging around watching anymore. If you're not careful, you might find yourself locked up in a trunk somewhere."
Sokka stepped closer, tight-lipped and glaring. "What, are you gonna order your cronies to do your dirty work for you?"
Zuko surged forward to stare him down. "I don't need help to put you in your place. I don't need to sneak up on you, either."
"Yeah, you're a real tough guy, Zuko. I'll bet Katara just loves that about you, doesn't she?"
"She'll warm up to me. She did before."
Sokka didn't think. He just closed the narrow gap between them and tackled Zuko to the floor with an infuriated yell. The door clanked open but he didn't hear that. He was only aware of Zuko snarling and punching and elbowing - or maybe that was Sokka himself. It was difficult to tell who was winning.
Then hands clamped onto his arms and hauled him to his knees. Zuko surged off the floor and stood over him, wiping blood from his lip and practically smoking out his ears.
But it was the guard captain who came down on Sokka with that club. The first blow split his lip against his teeth, the second punched into his gut, and the third cracked down on the back of his head, knocking him out cold.
.
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It took Zuko a gaping second to steel himself and bark, "Stop!"
The captain ceased beating Sokka at once, and stood at attention, clutching hard to his weapon. His eyes had a wild look but they remained fixed on a point straight ahead. "My deepest apologies, Prince Zuko," he gasped. "This was my fault. With the Avatar my main focus, I haven't taken the time to correct this prisoner's attitude."
"Never mind that," Zuko snapped, glaring down at Sokka's limp body. "I'll handle his punishment myself."
The captain flashed a hurt look, then resumed his military blankness. "As you will it, sir. I… I realize my service has been unforgivably lacking. Shall I resign my post to a more suitable officer?"
Zuko hesitated, momentarily confused, then let out an irritated huff. "That isn't necessary. You've performed your duties satisfactorily. I-"
It struck Zuko that it wasn't very princely at all to take a dirty job like disciplining a lowly prisoner into his own hands. That would probably raise eyebrows amongst the crew, and word would undoubtedly spread to the Fire Court. He would look barbaric, just like Azula had said.
But he couldn't just let his soldiers beat Sokka. That wasn't… right. This attack wasn't an act of disrespect like the guards were thinking - it was much more personal than that. And Zuko had to answer it in kind.
He did not bother to wonder why he felt that way, too focused on figuring out how to accomplish it so that it would appear appropriate.
"It has to be me," he bit out, "because, ah, in the Water Tribe, a flogging doesn't carry as much weight as... being defeated by a better man. And, since So- this prisoner is technically a prince, only being defeated by my hand will teach him to respect me."
The guards stared past him with carefully-concealed doubt.
"The Water Tribe is… complicated."
"Yes, sir," the captain said, then flicked his eyes down to stare at Sokka where he was drooling a little blood down the front of his tunic. "Never would have guessed," he murmured.
"You doubt me?" Zuko asked, hard and mean in the way he had learned made men jump.
The captain jumped. "Oh! No, Prince Zuko! I would never doubt you! I just-! I've never seen foreign royalty before and I would never have been able to distinguish this, this... unwashed ruffian from any other."
Zuko stared him down. The captain was not yet middle-aged, with a slightly uneven mustache and weary lines around his eyes. His name was Jeon and he had been sweating since Zuko arrived. Maybe Jeon was having trouble adjusting to commanding the night guard. Maybe the last hawk had brought bad news about his family. Maybe he had never wanted this job and was terrified of failing now that he had it.
But a prince didn't think of such things. A prince gave commands and expected them to be obeyed. A prince didn't suffer ineptitude or lax formality.
Zuko stared the captain down until he saw a bead of sweat race out from under the man's helmet like a startled mouse. Then, he turned to leave the cell, snapping his final command over his shoulder. "Give the prisoner tomorrow to recover. I'll deal with him the day after."
.
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When the guards came to move Katara, she didn't get a chance to struggle. They switched her straight from the bed chains to waterbender restraints while she was still blinking off sleep. Neck, wrists, waist, and ankles, she was locked in in just seconds. Then they stood her up and she almost fell down under the weight of all that steel, so they had to half-march and half-carry her down to the brig.
She had thought she would memorize the route, but all the corridors looked the same. There were signs painted on the walls in the first stairwell, but none of them were of any use to her. They all led to places she didn't want to go. Mess hall. Dormitory. Armory.
When they finally arrived at the brig, Katara felt the bubble of foreboding in her chest grow larger. The thick steel doors opened and there were so many soldiers stationed along the hall. How was she going to get out of here? How was she going to get her friends out?
The guards were about to guide her into a cell when she picked out a voice over the sound of her chains. It was muffled, coming from behind one of the doors farther down, but she would know his voice anywhere.
"Katara! Is that you? Shout if it's you! Katara!"
"Sokka!" She shoved against the guard gripping her arm and felt the control chain yank tight from her other side, already drawing her legs and arms in. "Sokka! I'm here!"
Sokka was shouting something else to her but she couldn't hear over the guard. "Quiet down, waterbender." He began pushing her back toward the cell.
"Please," Katara gasped, pain lancing through her as she pushed back. It only made her want to push harder. "Let me just see my brother! I just want to see him!"
The guard glared down at her. He was a big man, with a square jaw and a pointed beard on his chin. "You'll see him when it pleases the Princess and the Prince. Until then, you wait quietly in your cage and we won't have a problem." He gave her another firm shove, his fingers biting deep into her arm, and Katara was propelled into the cell. The door slammed shut behind her.
And then, for a very long time, nothing happened. Katara rattled around the cell - literally, because her chains dragged and clanked and weighed her down - until she finally became too tired and had to rest on her pallet. She must have dozed off because she snapped awake when a meal of crumbling rice and oily smoked fish was shoved through the slot at the bottom of her door. She ate the salty food and complained loudly that she'd like something to drink, but got no reply.
It was only at what must have been the end of the day, after her third meal had come, that they finally let her drink. The guards commanded her into even more chains - chains rigged to stretch out her arms and lock her kneeling to the floor - and Katara obediently put them on because she was so very thirsty. When she was secure, a guard came in to check that the locks were engaged, and finally, from a cup on the end of a long staff, Katara was allowed to drink.
She lay on her pallet afterward and stared at the dim steel ceiling where the vent was blowing its constant stream of warm, dry air. She lay there and stared and tried to think of practical things.
Sokka was unreachable, but not a stone's throw away. Toph and Aang probably weren't far off, either, but equally beyond her power to help. If she had water, maybe she could freeze the hinges on the doors and somehow blast through. And then fight all the guards in the hallway beyond before the guards outside the brig managed to call for reinforcements. And then somehow find Appa and escape.
Katara wanted to reach up and brush her loose hair away from her face but decided to try blowing it away instead because her arms were tired and so heavy with steel. When she blew, her chest began throbbing again.
Even if she had water, she would have to wait until she was stronger. And even as she healed, she was going to weaken if they were always going to give her so little water each day. That meant that whatever she did, she would need to do it sooner rather than later. Not to mention the fact that they were creeping closer to the Fire Nation every second. Better to break free when they could still make it back to the Earth Kingdom.
And of course, Katara had that other time-sensitive problem. That problem she was powerless to deal with now. That problem she was trying not to think about...
She shut her eyes so tight that she blocked out most of the dim light, but the backs of her eyelids still glowed a muted red. She was so stupid not to have made the tonic days ago. So stupid to think a baby would make any difference to Zuko. So stupid to have ever looked at him and let herself see a boy instead of that creepy prince she had always known he was.
Katara curled on her side and fisted her hands in her hair. There was a lump in her throat like she was going to cry or scream and her face twisted on its own into a snarl.
She had counted the days a dozen times. Her cycle should have started already. Certainly, there were other stresses that might have caused her rhythm to skip, but in that cell under the unceasing dull light and the oppressive thirst, the horrible truth grew more evident, more likely. Katara was carrying her enemy's child. She was tormented with visions of herself chained and big-bellied in the months to come, paraded before the Fire Nation, a spoil of war. She couldn't stop seeing in herself the shameful woman that her people would speak of, the ruined girl, the fool who'd allowed herself to be used by the prince of the Fire Nation. The love-blind little fool who'd opened her legs and lost the war.
The thoughts crowded in around her until she could hardly breathe. Then, as she had been doing since she woke up in that infirmary cot, Katara made herself assess her situation. She made herself search for the escape route she knew had to exist. She gritted her teeth and thought of practical things.
Sokka was unreachable, but so very, very close…
Katara laid awake late into the night this way, then woke and paced her cell all morning, lifting her arms and her chains to try and fight weakness. She rested. She ate. In the afternoon, the guards opened her door and the same man who had shoved her in the previous morning stood waiting. Over his big shoulder, Katara could see another soldier loitering in the corridor.
When she didn't move any closer, the big guard held out his hand and made a beckoning gesture - two short, impatient twitches of his fingers. "You're going upstairs, waterbender. Give me your chain."
"I am not going upstairs," Katara snapped, backing away. "You can tell him I don't want to see him. Ever."
The guard stepped through the door. It was a quiet threat, and he went on watching her with the same steady stare. "I don't care what you want. Your options are limited to walking upstairs like a human being or getting dragged by your leash like an animal."
Katara bared her teeth and stood ready. The guard stood perfectly still for a long time. Then, he made a lunge for her control chain. Katara dodged him, but the other guard slipped into the room and grabbed the chain linking her manacles. Katara head-butted him and they both went staggering back.
"Doesn't work so well when your opponent wears a helmet, hey?" Katara blinked hard to clear her vision and saw the first guard standing before her, gripping her control chain and watching her as he addressed the second guard. "Shon, how's your face?"
Shon, a skinnier man with a slim mustache, leaned against the wall by the door and dabbed at his brow under the helmet. "I'm fine," he huffed, glaring at Katara. "I just didn't expect it. None of the other women put up a fight like that."
Katara bared her teeth again, on the brink of concisely illustrating just how different she was from the other women, but her chain jerked, cutting her off. The first guard was still watching her, but he spoke past her. "Take a break, Shon."
"Lieutenant Roshu, I-"
"You've been briefed on this prisoner. Either you weren't listening or you weren't thinking. You need a break. Send me Kaiji for the transfer."
Katara watched Shon bow and hurry from the cell, then looked back at the Lieutenant. He was still watching her, gripping her chain and waiting for her to make a wrong move. If she had water, she could get out of these chains, race out into the corridor, fight the guards, and free her friends. But she didn't have water. It was all she could do to keep standing. One way or another, this man was right - she was going wherever he dragged her.
But she went on scowling at him anyway. She wouldn't make this easy. She wouldn't be like that cowed healer.
Lieutenant Roshu's tawny eyes narrowed a bit. "That private might look at your pretty face and get the wrong idea, but I know what you are."
"Yeah?" Katara sneered. "And what's that?"
"You're a wolf." The Lieutenant spoke without moving, watching her with his mouth pressed to a hard angle. "You can't help but snap and snarl like any wolf on a chain. And if some fool forgets it, you'll tear his throat out like any wolf would. But I won't forget," Roshu said. "You won't ever get past me, waterbender."
His look was beyond threatening. It was hateful. This man hated her, and the knowledge pressed Katara back a step. She had always kind of thought that the Fire Nation had to hate the Water Tribe to treat them the way they did, but seeing it now directed at her by a stranger was unnerving.
Katara kept scowling at him, though. In fact, she was kind of scared, so she scowled even harder. "You keep on thinking that, pal. I want to see the face you make when you figure out you're wrong."
Roshu watched her for a second, then gave the control chain a jerk. Katara teetered, but didn't fall. Instead, she dropped to a crouch and glared up at Roshu. He stepped closer, smoothly taking up the excess chain to keep it tight. The motion spoke of long practice.
"The only reason you aren't eating deck yet," he said slowly, "is the Prince's order that you're to be handled carefully while you heal. Now you might think I'm making that up so I don't have to knock a little girl down, but you and I both know you're not a little girl. And if it so much as looks like you're thinking about making a move while my hand is on this chain-" He increased the pressure slightly. Katara toppled to one knee. "I'll risk my Prince's anger to keep you in line. Do you understand?"
Katara glared up at Lieutenant Roshu, and there was no small amount of hate in her own expression, now. Past him, she saw another soldier standing in the doorway, looking on. He cleared his throat but the Lieutenant seemed not to notice, intent on his prisoner's answer.
"Yes," Katara spat. "I understand."
"Good." Roshu let off the pressure and backed up a few steps. "Get up and quit wasting time."
Seething, Katara extended to her feet. Her chest hurt. Her back and legs hurt. Her head was pounding and there may have been a lump rising on her forehead, she wasn't sure. What had just become totally clear, though, was that she was going to have to pick her battles with the Lieutenant.
The ensuing climb was more taxing than she could have expected and, to her shame, the Lieutenant and his quiet assistant had to carry her up the last few flights. They finally arrived in the royal suites and Katara was so busy staring surreptitiously at the ornately appointed doors and the meek, silent servants who opened one of them, she did not immediately realize that the sitting room beyond was empty.
Lieutenant Roshu guided her to one end of the low, rectangular table. "Sit."
Katara would have loved to sit, she was so tired, but she turned a mutinous look upon him and remained standing for several long seconds. Only when he gave her chain a warning jerk did she finally lower herself to sit on the cushion. It was embroidered silk, softer than any cloth she had ever touched. And it was a mere cushion for sitting on the floor.
Katara scowled around the room at the pink and gold decor and, with a start, she noticed something she should have seen at once. A window. A large window. Through it, she could just see where the horizon cut off the ocean. A glimmering, hopeful stripe.
Katara stared out the window as the silent seconds grew into minutes. A plan was forming. She could wrench away from the Lieutenant, smash through the glass with her own chain, and dive for the sea. It would be a long drop, and she would have to figure out some way of rescuing the others from the brig, but getting out of her own restraints was a first step. It was practical. This was her chance.
Katara subtly tensed, preparing to leap to her feet and strike at the Lieutenant's face, but at precisely that moment a door opened and bowing servants ushered someone through. Someone Katara had not expected. The back of her neck prickled at just the sight of her.
"So good of you to join me," Azula said as she stood like a fortified tower at the other end of the table. Her smile was knife-sharp and her eyes glittered knowingly. "We have such a lot to talk about, just us girls."
