For the next couple of days, Katara didn't leave the infirmary. Between sessions in the tub, she slept on a curtained-off cot until the healers - usually three at a time - came to walk her carefully across the work room and lower her into the cool water. Then they glazed the air with their pale blue light and, piece by piece, coaxed her body to mend.
Physically, Katara felt stronger with every treatment. But as her body healed, she sensed more and more a strange numbness in her. A hole where some unnameable thing had been taken away. Iyuma said she was just tired. The healing was sapping a lot of her energy. That was all.
But that wasn't all. Looking at Iyuma's lopsided smile, she felt a keen sense of the lost thing. Sometimes she thought she knew what it was. Spirit, maybe. Will. Desire to do anything but shrivel up and vanish.
As soon as she was no longer spending her nights in the healing tub, Roshu reappeared. He said nothing, but whenever he was in the room, he watched the healers with a close, cold focus. They watched him, as well, but without ever looking directly at him. They only did their work and kept their heads down, holding up silence like a shield. When Zuko visited, they were not quite so reserved. Iyuma in particular had a way of asserting proper boundaries about where men could be in relationship to her patient, and Zuko continued to grudgingly go along with it. He kept his visits brief, just long enough to hear the latest developments and look at Katara with that same furrow in his brow, and then he allowed himself to be shooed away.
But with Roshu, who was near at hand all day and all night, the healers never spoke.
After a few days of this, Katara waited until he left the room - which he always did when she was preparing to shed her clothes for a healing session - and immediately looked over her shoulder at Iyuma. Usually, the healer began their conversations, and kept the topics light. Attuk and how he came to be her betrothed, other boys they both knew. She didn't ask a lot of hard questions, although it was clear she was curious about the resistance. Her eyes lit up with that thing Katara had lost, until she finally wrestled it back under control. She did constantly bring up new names, but with less intensity than the first time, now that she knew they would have these moments away from prying eyes.
"Did Roshu do something?" Katara asked. "I mean, you all seem kind of afraid of him."
Iyuma paused in helping her out of her shirt. She shot a glance at the other healer on duty, a plump middle-aged woman named Sutka. Sutka let out a sigh and turned away to gather some herbs for the tub.
"After the fall of the North," Iyuma said quietly, "things were really bad. All our Warriors were jailed and everyone else was held under house arrest. The Fire Nation patrolled the streets and beat anyone who left their homes." She stepped away to fold Katara's shirt and laid it on a stool. "But the waterbenders got chained. The Fire Nation forced them to rebuild everything that had been destroyed, and they made the healers treat their soldiers before we could take care of our own people."
"That's awful." Katara rubbed her hands up her arms, trying to soothe away the goosebumps. Iyuma helped her out of her loose sleep pants and coaxed her toward the tub.
"It got worse. You know how the waterbenders finally revolted and escaped, right?"
Katara remembered her lessons with Pakku and the chains. Falling and falling on the stone docks until her bones grated together. "Yeah."
For a long moment, Iyuma was silent as she eased Katara over the edge into the water. Finally, quietly, she went on.
"They left us. They broke the Warriors out of jail, but they didn't bother with the Healers' Hut."
"That's not fair, Iyuma," Sutka said as she returned to sprinkle the herbs into the water. "We aren't fighters. They had to take the fighters first."
"We could have been fighters."
The two women's eyes locked. Katara stared up at them, caught in the middle of the unspoken struggle. Distantly, she remembered arguing the same thing a long time ago. She had said the Northern Water Tribe could have been twice as strong. She had believed it so intensely.
Now, she sank back in the healing tub. She held her silence and stayed out of it. Finally Sutka replied, tight and quiet.
"Maybe we could have. But we weren't then, and they couldn't save everyone."
"Fine," Iyuma said stiffly. Together, she and Sutka raised the blue light and began their slow, methodical work. Katara felt the tugs and prickles under her fragile skin, and shut her eyes.
At length, Iyuma went on. "Since the healers were the only waterbenders left behind, we were the ones who caught the backlash. They put us in those chains if we gave them the smallest excuse. Talk back? You get the chains. Roll your eyes? Chains. Protest inhumane treatment? Chains."
"Some of those soldiers got very good at creating the sorts of situations that justified punishment," Sutka said sourly. Iyuma hesitated before continuing, and her silence was brittle with secrets.
"Your… personal lurking shadow wasn't that bad. But he was still cruel. He hated us. Right at the start, he knocked our Chief Healer down until her bones broke."
"That's why we're careful around that one. He might be settled down some, but he's a brute deep down. No one wants to see that side of him surface again."
Katara thought about that as they did their work. She had certainly known Roshu to be cruel, but something had changed over the months she'd been stuck with him. Had it been him?
Or maybe she had simply come to accept his hovering threat as her due. Maybe her spirit had finally degraded so much that she no longer cared that she was constantly being watched and kept in her place.
And if that was true, why did it only fill her with more despair? Where was her anger? Where was her outrage? Had Zhao managed to burn them out of her? Months as a slave, and he was the one to finally push her too far?
Katara shut her eyes tight until she could see no hint of the blue light, and waited for the thoughts, and the deep misery they brought with them, to pass.
There was a commotion by the door, heavy steps and loud voices. The healing stopped abruptly and Katara, seeing Iyuma and Sutka were both distracted, peeked over the edge of the tub. In the doorway, Roshu stood with his back to the infirmary.
"-can't be in here," he snapped. "Now get back to the laundry where-"
"You do not command me, young man!" barked a much older woman. The volume drove Roshu a step back and she - a stout woman in servants' rough work clothes - shoved past him into the room. Her eyes skimmed across the two healers, then fixed on Katara. She bowed, servant to royalty. Roshu grabbed her shoulder, but she shoved him off with one thick forearm as if the big man was no more than a pestering boy. He glared at her back, incensed.
"Forgive my intrusion, Princess Katara," she said with a practiced polish that did not fit her spotty frock. "There is a matter of some urgency that should concern you."
Bewildered, Katara pulled herself up in the tub. "I- What?"
"I am the head laundress, Machi. I oversee your former servant in her new position."
"Sian?" Katara was beginning to get a terrible feeling. Machi was speaking politely and kept her eyes lowered in a gesture of respect, but the tension in her posture was obvious. "What happened? What's the matter?"
"It seems she may have taken some items from the Prince's majordomo. Items that belong to you."
Katara blinked, momentarily confused. Then she remembered her last confrontation with Pokui. Sokka's wolftail. Her mother's necklace. Would Sian do that? Would she steal her things? And why, when she wasn't even Katara's maid anymore?
"I tried to intervene," Machi went on, "but I don't have the clout to interfere with a majordomo's decisions. She means to have Sian beaten and dismissed."
Katara lurched up from the tub and would have fallen back in if Iyuma hadn't caught her arm and guided her over the edge.
"This is a mistake," Sutka said on the other side of the tub. "She's still very fragile. If she collapses, she could tear the new flesh and cause a lot more damage."
"Oh, let her try, would you?" Iyuma snapped.
Katara hesitated. Even with someone else taking much of her weight, her legs wobbled underneath her. She stared down at them, and the emptiness yawned inside her. She was like a dead tree, with nothing inside but mites and cobwebs. A stiff breeze, and she would fall. She would break.
"What can I even do?" she asked, her voice as unsteady as her knees. "I can't waterbend like this. I can hardly stand. No matter what I say, Pokui won't listen to a… a helpless slave."
Silence filled the room. Everyone else was digesting those words, that hopelessness, and Katara was ashamed. The healers would accept her weakness, but Iyuma would no longer look back at her with that fierce gleam in her eyes. Katara had spent months building stories about herself - her courage, her honor, her skill - and she had never worried before whether they were lies. Losing the duel on its own had planted the seed of doubt. How brave was she, really? How skilled? How much of her success up to now had been luck?
But then she had seen that play and the seed had burst into a blooming weed, a garden of weeds. What if that character in the play was all anyone had ever seen when they looked at her? Pretty and lucky and… manageable by a clever man. Worse, what if it was true? What if she had been fooling herself this entire time, not just about how people saw her, but about the truth of her own motivations?
"That girl worships the ground you walk on."
It wasn't quite a criticism, but the tone in which Machi spoke put it very close. She lowered her wrinkled chin and arched her eyebrows and fixed Katara with a penetrating stare.
"Pardon my saying so, but she's in this situation because her loyalty belongs to you. She took your possessions back for you. If you don't help her, no one else will."
Katara stared back. She had never asked Sian to do this. She had never wanted to be a princess or have servants or live in a palace. She wasn't strong enough to protect herself, much less anyone else. She wasn't worthy of that kind of trust. She was just a silly girl from a poor village.
But even as a village girl, Katara had always known what it was to have other people depend on her. And no matter how weak or broken she might be, no matter how impossible it was, she couldn't just let someone else suffer. She couldn't turn her back on someone who needed her.
She wouldn't.
Carefully, she pushed away from Iyuma, wavering as she took her full weight for the first time. Her legs shimmied, but they held. She took an uncertain step toward the door. Then another.
"Here," Sutka said as she wrapped a long robe around her damp underthings and hurriedly tied off the sash. She kept her eyes on the knot and grumbled until it was tied. "Can't have you flashing it all over the palace."
She stepped aside and Katara tottered another step or two forward. It got easier as the sore, awkward feeling of walking became familiar. Then she stopped. And looked up.
Roshu blocked the door, his arms crossed and his frown deep. "Get back in the tub."
Katara peered up at him. This man had fought in the North, and he had brutalized the healers. Helpless women. He had tried to control her with chains and threats, too, had bullied her to bend her to his will. And now, she had no bending to defend herself against him or force him out of her way. For the first time in a long time, Katara looked into Roshu's eyes and saw how daunting he was.
But she couldn't let him stop her. Sian was depending on her.
"Get out of the way, Roshu."
"The girl stole. You aren't any more entitled to interfere in a majordomo's decisions than a laundress."
"Maybe not," Katara said. She couldn't even find it in her to glare at him. "But I'm going to do it."
He frowned steadily down at her, his eyes assessing. He could easily force her back to the tub, and Katara could see him thinking about doing just that. But he didn't even uncross his arms.
"Prince Zuko won't permit this."
"I don't know, seems like a matter of honor to me. Why don't you go ask him?"
Roshu didn't move for a long moment. Then he took one step back, turned, and strode away. Katara stared after him, flabbergasted. She stayed that way until Iyuma murmured behind her.
"Did he really just go to find the Prince?"
"I don't know," Katara said, bracing one hand on the doorframe as she began her slow escape from the infirmary. "But if he did, I need to hurry. Machi? Can you show me where to go?"
The head laundress nodded and took the lead, and the two healers followed along after Katara, very quietly assessing her mobility and the chances of her making it to wherever they were going. In the middle, Katara just tottered along, and focused her mind on staying on her feet.
.
.
Zuko stopped pacing the space in front of his desk long enough to reread the letter from the Office of Veterans' Records, then resumed his circuit around the room. It had taken a few days to get a response to his inquiry at the somewhat frazzled office. That being so, the answer he had finally received had been doubly disappointing.
Deceased. No current address. Private Tyno had been a casualty in the first wave against the mountain fortress. Next of kin as follows.
He was attempting to remind himself how annoying the man had been. His inconvenient presence, his incessant requests to talk, the burden of responsibility for his wellbeing. Of course, now that the burden was removed from his control, Zuko wondered if maybe it wouldn't have been better to keep the soldier with him.
Soldiers died all the time. According to Ozai's generals, it was a part of war. It was, he had heard them conjecture, arguably the biggest part of war.
But that thought held no comfort. That thought only troubled Zuko more.
Surprising even himself, he whirled and swept everything from his desk. Then he braced his hands on the sturdy wood and peered down at the scattered papers. In a simpler time in his life, indulging in a fit of temper had satisfied some need in him. Now, he felt no relief from the pressure. No clarity. The worries that plagued him remained, strong as ever.
Sighing, he crouched down to gather up the documents.
Among them, shifted to the top in the chaos, was an unsent missive he had forgotten about. Zuko frowned as he read it. Another troubling thing. He still had heard nothing back about Lieutenant Jee and the other members of his crew. Now he would certainly have to press for answers.
At a brusque knock on his door, he straightened. "Enter."
Lieutenant Roshu appeared in the doorway. He cast a single glance at all the papers on the floor, then looked away dutifully. "Your highness, there's a situation with the waterbender. She's…" He hesitated, anger stewing on his face. "…interfering in your household affairs."
Zuko, whose mind had leapt to worries about her health, blurted. "Oh. She's feeling better, then?"
Roshu shot him a brief, measuring look that was not entirely appropriate. Zuko scowled.
"Why are you here telling me this? Why aren't you stopping her?"
"Because I am no longer able to perform my duties."
He lowered himself to one knee, glaring at the floor in front of him. Zuko could only stare for a long moment, too shocked for words. "Explain."
"Forgive me, your highness, but she saved my life during the attack. I cannot be trusted to keep her under control when I owe her such a debt." He seemed to hesitate, then pressed on. "Even before that, I see now that my priorities were becoming unclear. I have not been in control of the waterbender; I have been merely placing myself between her and trouble. In good health, she can easily go through me. But even convalescing… It is my professional opinion that if I continue in this post, I will inevitably let her behave however she sees fit.
"Your highness, I beg of you, please release me from this responsibility before I fail you and bring further dishonor on myself."
Zuko stared at the top of Roshu's head. He felt oddly as if he was being abandoned mid-battle, but he couldn't blame the man. To Roshu, Katara was an assignment. It was a wonder he had stayed on this long. Zuko himself would have quit by now. Had tried, in fact, to do just that.
"Very well, Lieutenant. You are relieved. I will write your orders for transfer and a recommendation."
"Thank you, your highness. You honor me." Roshu rose. "If it is possible, I would prefer to serve at the front."
Zuko blinked, momentarily surprised. Then he acceded and dismissed the former safety officer. He watched him go, trying to pinpoint the reason for the alarm sounding in the back of his mind. There were probably more reasons driving the man to return to battle, reasons better left private.
It is a safe bet that every soldier has ghosts, Prince Zuko.
Already frowning, Zuko hastened from his office and went to find Katara and whatever household affair she had decided was important enough to butt heads over.
.
.
Sokka picked his way through the garden (which was a weird word for a place made up of sand and rocks and a few twisty trees) and tried to tune out the booms and crashes of the earthbending lesson going on at the most remote end of the property. At least Aang had gotten past his crisis of faith and was starting to get the hang of it now. They had enough problems without Sokka having to play therapist.
Apparently Iroh's friend was this rich guy who mostly spent his time practicing calligraphy and raking sand. He had been a generous host for the past couple of days but Sokka wasn't sure how long anyone could put up with this noise. At some point, they were going to have to move on.
"Are you lost," a dry voice asked from within the shadows of a stand of bamboo, "or were you looking for something?"
Sokka stopped mid-step on the stone path. "Oh! I'm sorry, Master Piandao. I thought it was okay for us to walk around the garden. I'm probably intruding, I'll just-"
"Come closer."
Sokka looked up the path through the canes. It was narrow, and the knife-shaped leaves obscured whatever waited beyond the first bend. He did not want to go in there.
But he'd been sleeping in the guy's house and eating his food - a lot of his food. And it was good food, too. Piandao had even provided the elegant clothes he was wearing at this very moment. Katara would be scolding him right now.
Sokka! You're being rude! The least you can do is go talk to your generous host.
So, letting out a silent grumble, he wove his way into the cane forest. The shade was immediately cool and soothing, but the air was still. The distant sounds of earthbending seemed to fade away with every step.
He came to a small circular clearing where the man himself sat before a simple frame easel, painting. Sokka couldn't see what he was painting, and he had the disconcerting feeling he had blundered into the way. Piandao seemed unperturbed. His face was set in calm concentration as he brought his brush down with a steady hand.
"So what is it you're looking for, Sokka?" His dark eyes flicked up to him. "It is Sokka, isn't it?"
"Yep! Sokka, Southern Water Tribe. That's me."
Piandao gave a noncommittal grunt and looked back to the canvas. He selected a new color and applied it in three sharp strokes. For a second, Sokka hovered in awkward silence.
"I wasn't actually looking for anything. Just kind of, you know, wandering around."
"Yesterday, you had my butler dig up half a dozen maps and spent five hours studying them. Was that wandering as well?"
"I was considering our next move," Sokka said carefully. "I doubt you'll want to keep us here until Aang finishes his training."
"My neighbors will become suspicious eventually," he admitted as he set aside his brush. "Most small construction projects tend to be quieter. I was more curious about this."
He pulled a scrap of paper from a pocket inside his outermost robe and held it up. Sokka vaguely recognized the scribbles on the paper as his own.
"Those are distances. I was trying to figure out how quickly-"
"This, specifically." Piandao pointed to a shape drawn in between lines of math.
"That," Sokka said, his face heating, "is a helmet for Appa."
"Why would a sky bison need a helmet?"
"Okay, so I know it seems crazy. Sky bison. He's got horns and his skull is probably thicker than most steam cruiser hulls-" He whipped a finger up. "-but there's a good reason for this."
Piandao raised his eyebrows, waiting to be impressed.
"See, twice now, our enemies have been able to knock out Appa with a poisoned dart to the mouth. So I figured - face armor! If darts and arrows can't get in, neither can poison."
"An innovative solution. And these protrusions?"
"As you may know, Appa is very fluffy. The giant spikes will help to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies."
"Or impale the rider."
"Or that." Sokka rubbed the back of his neck. "It was just an idea."
Piandao looked again at the drawing. "Iroh tells me you have some skill with a sword."
"Well, I was the best warrior in my village," he said a dose of reflexive swagger, then shrugged. "But I've fought and trained with warriors a lot better than me since then. Now, I'm just trying to be helpful in any way I can."
"A versatile man with a sword can always find ways to be helpful."
"I don't actually have a sword… I had a boomerang, but I don't think it's coming back to me this time. I guess I'm kind of between weapons at the moment."
Piandao looked at him for a long moment, until Sokka became nervous and peered around the high tops of the canes. Finally, the older man sighed and rose lithely to his feet. Sokka stepped into the bamboo to make room as he passed. Leaves poked him behind his ears.
"Come along, Sokka."
Sokka hesitated, but his inner Katara reminded him again about being polite and, shrugging, he trotted to catch up.
Piandao led him back to the walkway and up some steps to the wide open courtyard that backed the house. The butler was waiting there, already strapped into a suit of protective gear and intently engaged in stretching out his back. More protective gear sat on the ground nearby, along with two swords.
Sokka grinned. "Are we interrupting Fat's workout?"
"On the contrary, we're just in time." Piandao picked up one of the swords and pulled the gleaming steel from its scabbard, then peered thoughtfully down the edge. "Iroh believes - and I agree - that the Avatar will need every possible advantage if he's going to face down the Fire Lord. He asked if I would consider training you. I've considered it." He looked back over his shoulder at Sokka. "I've decided I will."
"Oh! Listen, I may be kind of rusty and it's really generous of you to offer, but I've actually already been trained. In the Resistance."
Piandao raised his eyebrows and turned to face him fully. "Is that so? And you think a few months of general training has made you the best swordsman you can be? Do you imagine you have discovered every well of potential within yourself to the fullest?"
"That… feels like a trick question."
"Good. Because it is." Piandao swung the sword into a fighting stance and transformed from a rich art-nut to a warrior right in front of Sokka's eyes. "Training is not a lesson that you learn. It is an ever-growing practice. A tempering that broadens your mind and hones your body."
Sokka watched and grew steadily more impressed as the master took measured steps and maneuvered the weapon through the air with the same ease and confidence he had used in wielding a paintbrush.
"The sword can teach you something new every time you pick it up." Piandao stopped and sheathed the weapon with a flourish. "Will you learn?"
In Sokka's heart, there was a little boy with a wooden sword. He had done his best these past few months to be a supportive brother while Katara came into her power, and when it seemed like Aang needed moral support, he had stepped up to that challenge, too. When the time had come to choose between the Avatar and his tribe, he had done what he knew he had to do. He had let the Warriors sail off without him again. He had put his own training on hold so that he could help stop the war.
But in Sokka's heart, that little boy with the sword would always be running after the Warriors, trying to be what he, for whatever reason, couldn't be. Seeing Piandao's skill, and knowing that that wisdom was being offered to him now, filled that boy with a wild happiness.
At length, he realized he was grinning like a shimmery-eyed idiot. Piandao watched him, unimpressed. Sokka got himself under control, and bowed.
"I would be honored to learn what you can teach me, Master Piandao."
.
.
Katara followed Machi through a series of cramped rooms and hallways that she had never seen before. Spicy sweet food scented the halls before they passed through a kitchen full of steam and a few bustling cooks. A wide double door opened out onto the rear of the palace where a few carts were lined up, half-emptied of the baskets of produce they held. The workers who had been doing the unloading stood by, watching a drama unfold in the drive.
In fact, it looked like a great many servants had left their duties to bear witness. Cooks and scullions, maids and footmen, others whose uniforms Katara didn't recognize; they all stood clustered along the wall, watching a whip-thin woman repeatedly swing down a cane across the hunched and flinching back of a laundress on her knees. The whistle and then crack of impact resounded sharply off the wall, again and again and-
"Stop!"
The instant Katara spoke, every pair of eyes locked on her. A few gasps and murmurs were the only sounds. For a tense moment, Pokui held the cane raised. Then she whipped it down one last time and turned her back on Sian's whimper to focus her glare entirely on Katara.
"You have no business being here. Return to the infirmary at once. All of you!"
Her eyes raked the healers behind Katara, but when she looked at Machi, they scorched. Before she could spit out her next words, Katara began making her painfully slow way forward.
"I won't let you do this," she said. It was a struggle not to wince with every step, so she clenched her teeth as she spoke. "No one deserves to be treated this way, Sian least of all."
Pokui seemed to grow taller as she swelled with outrage. "She stole from my private office! She admitted to the deed!"
"It wasn't her."
"Intolerable audacity-"
"It was me."
On the ground, Sian made some faint sound of protest, but Pokui only stared back at Katara with frightening intensity. Around them, servants whispered and gasped. Behind her, Iyuma and Sutka uttered horrified sounds. Katara stood firm, even though the sun-hot paving stones burned against her bare feet.
"I told her to do it," she said steadily. "The crime was mine. So the punishment should be, too."
She was terrified. She had never been caned before and it looked like it hurt a lot, and she didn't even want to think about what it would do to her preexisting injuries. But she had thought about it the whole long walk to get here and this was the only solution she could come up with. She couldn't win a fight. She couldn't even win an argument with Pokui. She could, however, offer her something she probably wanted more. This was how she could protect Sian, at least a little.
"Very well," Pokui said. She whipped the cane through the air to point at a spot on the drive beside her. "Get on your knees."
"No," Sian said, climbing to her feet now. A pair of maids scurried out to catch her before she could interfere. "No, it was all my idea! Stop!"
Katara gingerly lowered herself to the paving stones and tried not to listen to Sian's increasing desperation. Her knees ached at once. The robe offered a layer of protection, but it was thin enough that she could feel the heat seeping up through the fabric. The sun beat down on the back of her neck as she bent forward, assuming the same position Sian had held. Pokui stood over her, a flinty look on her face.
"I know you're lying," she said in an undertone, "but you have had this coming for far too long. Remember this moment the next time you find yourself troubled by defiant thoughts. You brought it on yourself."
The cane whistled up through the air and lingered an instant at its peak.
"What is the meaning of this?"
At that commanding bark, Katara stared hard at the stones below her and gulped. Zuko. Despite what she had told Roshu about this being a matter of honor, she knew Zuko wouldn't let her go through with her plan. But she wasn't so certain what he would do. Would he insist on leaving Sian to her fate? If he did, would Katara be able to find the strength to fight him on it?
She hardly had it in her to stand up to Pokui. There was no way she could fight Zuko, too.
It took courage to finally raise her head, but he wasn't even looking at her. He was glaring at Pokui as he stalked toward them. The majordomo was bent forward in a deep bow. All the servants were bowing. Katara, belatedly, lowered herself into the only bow she could manage from her knees - a full kowtow.
"A matter of household discipline, your highness," Pokui said smoothly. "The laundry girl was caught stealing and Princess Katara confessed to ordering the crime."
"That is ludicrous," he snapped. "How dare you even suggest a princess would steal?"
Pokui hesitated. Katara looked up and took the opening. "It's true. I told Sian to steal back my stuff."
Zuko glared at her for one crackling second, an accusation and command for silence. Katara lowered her eyes.
"What stuff?"
"My thoughts exactly, your highness," the majordomo said with a measure of aplomb. Passing the cane from one hand to the other, she reached into her pocket. "I confiscated the items when it became clear that your slave believed she could act above her station at will. Clearly, that lesson did not sink in, and another is required."
She held out her palm toward Zuko in offering. Katara could not see what she held from the ground, but she saw the blue ribbon hanging over the side of her hand. Her chest ached. Zuko looked down at the objects. His brow was still deeply furrowed, and his frown was a harsh downward slash, but his eyes looked strange. Pained.
"Those things belong to Princess Katara," he finally said. The strange look vanished, burnt out by anger as he looked back up at Pokui. "Return them to her."
His voice was steely, cutting through the silence of the courtyard and leaving it somehow deeper, sharper than before. Forgetting propriety, Katara raised her head and looked directly at him. He did not seem to see her. He only glared at the majordomo. Pokui remained still as she fought her own inner rebellion against obeying such a command, then finally haltingly lowered her hand, offering it to Katara instead.
Zuko relented and finally turned his attention to Katara, frowning expectantly.
She sat back on her heels and, with shaking hands, picked up the lock of Sokka's hair, then her mother's necklace. They felt strange in her still-healing hands. The silkiness of the ribbon felt distant, not quite substantial. The ivory disk was cool against her palm.
Katara clutched them to her chest and scrubbed sudden tears off her face with the sleeve of her robe.
When she looked up again, Zuko was offering her a hand. His look was grim and faintly anxious, as if some greater matter hinged on her acceptance of the gesture. That was true, of course. A slave was never to pull away. If Katara refused him, it would embarrass him in front of all these servants.
She accepted his hand and let him help her to her feet. She would have stepped to follow behind him as he left the drive, but he didn't move to leave. And he didn't let go of her hand. Instead, he tucked it into the crook of his elbow and held it there firmly as he turned his attention to Sian.
She was still bowing along with all the other servants, though she trembled more from fear or pain. When Zuko bade her to rise, she stood with her eyes lowered and her hands grasped together before her. Katara felt sick to see a red bruise smudged along one corner of her mouth.
"I hired you to be a maid." Zuko said stonily. "Why are you dressed as a laundress?"
"Forgive me, your highness," Sian stammered, "I was demoted weeks ago."
Where it rested on top of her captive hand, Zuko's palm grew a measure hotter. "You will be seen in the infirmary, then you will return to the job I hired you to do."
"Yes, Prince Zuko. Thank you, Prince Zuko."
He dismissed her and then looked back over his shoulder at Pokui. All the anger from before simmered to the surface.
"It is clear that your idea of an acceptable household is not what I had in mind. Thank you for your service. You're fired."
Pokui gaped at him, but did not dare protest. She merely bowed her head respectfully and, with some effort, smoothed her expression.
Katara felt as stunned as the former majordomo looked. She followed - Zuko pulled her along - back toward the doorway. There, he stopped abruptly. Iyuma, Sutka, and Machi stood to one side, their faces respectfully lowered. Iyuma stared down with wide eyes. Sutka had beads of sweat dotting her temples.
Of course they were nervous. They were slaves. They probably weren't allowed to even leave the infirmary, and yet they had followed her here at their own risk. Unthinkingly, Katara curled her fingers into Zuko's sleeve.
But Zuko was staring at the head laundress. "You served my uncle."
"Yes, your highness. Many years ago," she said mildly. Katara thought she sensed a thread of wariness in her lowered eyes. "I have the honor of managing the palace laundry, now."
"How does-?" Zuko began, disbelieving, then sighed. "Nevermind. I am in need of a majordomo and few of the servants I remember from my childhood remain in the palace. I want you to take the position."
A few astonished murmurs scurried between the gathered servants. In a spiteful moment, Katara hoped Pokui was watching as her job was offered to someone new not a minute after she had been fired from it. She was too weary to stifle her tiny smile.
Machi's eyes bulged and she ventured a look up at Zuko's face. "Prince Zuko," she said in an undertone, "I was removed from personal service during the succession. Installing me to that office again may not be in your best interests."
Katara peeked at Zuko from the corner of her eye. She wasn't sure what it meant that Machi had served Iroh before the succession - her mind was increasingly fuzzy with exhaustion - but Zuko's expression gave nothing away. His frown was thoughtful, as if he was assessing some hidden risk. Having reached a decision, he shook his head.
"That was almost ten years ago. Besides, you're the most qualified person for the job."
Machi bowed her head deeply, and if she was surprised, she did not show it. "As you command, Prince Zuko."
Zuko made as if to go, but Katara dug her fingers into his arm before he could walk past the healers. He did not look at her, and hesitated only a beat. "Princess Katara's health seems much improved," he said, a little stiltedly.
"Yes, your highness," Sutka replied. "Improved but not yet completely recovered. She will continue to need regular healing sessions and plenty of rest for some time."
"I imagine that healing could be done in her own quarters, where she will be more comfortable."
It was not a question so much as a command loosely veiled in the illusion of asking their professional opinion. Katara noticed Sutka hesitate, not wanting to contradict him. Iyuma, however, had no such reservations.
"Your highness, we need a bath to submerge our patient to achieve the best results."
Zuko only glanced at Machi. "Arrange it."
Then he tugged Katara through the open doors, through the kitchen where the cooks bowed as he passed, and through another double door into the formal dining room. He kept their pace sedate, but Katara was quickly glad to have his sturdy arm to lean on. She was exhausted.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Zuko finally asked. His voice was tight with anger, like he had to squeeze an enormous feeling through a tiny aperture.
Katara didn't look at him. It didn't matter whether he was angry or hurt. He had chosen Pokui to start with, so he'd done it to himself, really. "I thought she was doing what you wanted her to do."
"I know what your mother's necklace means to you," he growled. "Why would I want her to take it from you?"
Despite the control in his voice, he was watching her with angry heat. She could feel it rolling off him like a furnace. In her free hand, though, the ivory disk of her mother's necklace was cool and calming. She held it to her chest. Finally, just from the corner of her eye, Katara met his gaze.
"Because slaves don't own property." She watched the words strike him as if she had shouted and went on, quiet and relentless. "I'm a slave, Zuko. Just like those healers. Why should I have any more rights than they do?"
Zuko didn't answer. He just stared at her until she dropped her eyes back to the floor in front of them. It was a relief, not having to meet that disbelief, that alarm in his eyes. All the way back to the crown prince's suite, his silence reverberated between them, and Katara swam in the stillness of her thoughts.
Rather than stopping to dismiss her at his door, Zuko led her straight inside without comment. The footmen who opened the doors subtly noted the way he escorted her - that was the only word Katara could think of to describe how he clenched her hand still in the crook of his elbow, how he allowed (encouraged?) her to hang off of him when her own legs faltered. The footmen saw that, though their faces remained calm and proper.
She knew she should pull away, walk on her own. Even fall. Anything but cooperate with the man who owned her. But she was tired, and her skin had the brittle, twingey feeling of having been overworked.
And besides, why fight the inevitable? Why break her back keeping up appearances when people were going to think what they wanted, anyway?
Zuko guided her through the corridors of his rooms to the open walkway where late morning sunshine poured in from the garden. Carefully, gently, he helped her down the steps and around the smooth loop of the path.
"You aren't wearing any shoes," he said sourly.
Katara looked down at her bare toes. The packed earth of the path wasn't as hot as the paving stones had been, and as they passed into the shadows under the tree, it was even pleasantly cool.
"I'm surprised that mouthy healer let you leave the infirmary underdressed."
"That's Iyuma," she said absently. "She's betrothed to Attuk."
Zuko stopped walking to frown at her, which she could see from the corner of her eye without looking up from her toes where they curled into the dust. He finally scoffed. "The big guy who figured out you were a girl."
Katara nodded minutely.
"There's no way."
She finally peeked up at him, not sure how to read his incredulous frown. "Why not?"
"That guy looked like a hippocow with that pierced septum. She's way too pretty for him."
Katara stared at him, the surly conviction so plain on his face as he continued guiding her along the path. It was… annoying. "She loves him. They grew up together. It's romantic."
He shot her a side-eyed look. "Romance without passion is a windless sea."
"Don't quote proverbs at me like you're suddenly some kind of expert on romance."
Zuko didn't fire back. He just looked at her. It wasn't a smile exactly. At least, it didn't touch his mouth. But his eyes lingered on her, soft and warm and intense.
Katara remembered that look as if from a past life. It still made her heart speed up - but not in a good way. Not anymore. Now it only left her feeling sick and weak. Distantly, helplessly angry.
She pulled away as they neared the sliding panels of her apartment. "Look, I appreciate what you did back there, for Sian and... for me, but I can't do this with you."
"Do what?"
"Talk like everything is fine when it's not." It hit her again, how much she had lost in the duel, how completely she had failed. It twisted through her like a muscle spasm, ratcheting tighter by the second. She scowled at the ground and shut her eyes until it eased.
"I know we aren't friends," Zuko said, "but I can help you if you'll let me."
Katara glared at him dully. "Leave me alone. That's all the help I want from you."
Not waiting for an answer, she pushed the panels apart and climbed through the gap.
Left behind in the garden, Zuko frowned. For a moment there, she had sounded almost normal, but then she had withdrawn again. It troubled him, though not half as much as what she had just tried to do. He had expected to find her in the middle of a shouting match, not submitting herself to take the maid's punishment.
But of course she would. Katara protected people. Even people who weren't hers to protect. Even when she didn't have the strength to stand. It made him furious, seeing her like that, but he had tamped down hard on his temper because it was also a relief to see her acting like herself again. At least that part of her was intact.
What he had seen during his brief visits to the infirmary was proof enough that Katara was not well. He had watched her recover from injuries before, and this was more than that. It was written clearly in her manner, her posture, the listless slide of her eyes. She wasn't just hurt. She was tangling with inner demons.
It so happened Zuko had some experience with that. And if there was one thing he knew about pulling through the darkest times, it was that having something to look forward to, something to catch or achieve, was essential. That was what Katara needed now. Before the duel, she had been driven to win her freedom. Now, that didn't even seem to be a consideration. If he wanted to help her, Zuko was going to have to turn her attention to some purpose, and he was going to have to get her fired up enough to care about it. He owed her that much, at least. And...
Don't quote proverbs at me...
And it would be... nice to see her fired up again, with her eyes glittering and that special kind of scorn in her voice. She didn't want his help, and she wasn't going to like him interfering with her, but that was only going to work to his advantage. The madder she got at him, the more driven she would be to shake off those demons and fight. So the madder the better.
Yeah. It was going to be nice.
One corner of his mouth tipped upward, but dropped again in the same breath. He hadn't wanted Iroh's help, either, but when things were at their bleakest, Uncle had been there with his tea and proverbs. It had always seemed so pointless in the moment. Now though, walking through the same garden he had visited as a small boy and smelling the same jasmine blooming, Zuko realized his mouth was dry. He realized he wanted a particular blend of tea, something Uncle had shared with him years ago. Maybe Machi would know how to make it.
He would have tea, and send that blasted inquiry about his crew, and then he would return for Katara.
