"I didn't want to stay behind," Katara said plainly. "I was the only waterbender left in the entire South Pole. There was no one there to teach me - but there was a master in the resistance. I finally had a chance to learn, and I wanted to protect my brother. But my dad decided to just leave me there because he thought I would be safer."

She shook her head, trying not to frown too hard. That look had already faded from their faces, and it stung a little to have it revoked, but she wasn't going to pretend to be something she wasn't.

What Katara didn't realize was that these women - all so different from her, all from the literal opposite end of the world - were hearing her words echo through their own lives.

...decided to just leave me there...

"That's when Zuko showed up," she went on, and couldn't help the dry frown now as it pulled at her face. She poked the last noodle around the bottom of her bowl. "He crashed into the village with his old steamer and marched out with his soldiers like he owned the place."

"This is... the Fire Prince?" one of the women ventured.

"Right. Prince Zuko. Whatever. I didn't know he was a prince then. He was just a creepy Fire Nation guy who invaded my home, hunting for the Avatar and threatening to chase down my dad's ship. No," she corrected herself, getting angrier as she remembered. She stabbed the noodle into little bits. "He was confident he was going to catch the ship. The threat was that he would feel less merciful when he did catch them if we didn't tell him where they were heading. So of course somebody got scared and blabbed."

"So this Fire Prince," an especially wary-faced woman sitting beside Loska murmured. "He kidnapped you?"

Katara blinked in surprise, her old irritation fading as she looked into that anxious face, as she caught other anxious faces waiting. Regardless of how she felt about Zuko, she needed her people to feel secure here. She needed them to understand that he wasn't an immediate danger to them. She took a deep breath and went on evenly.

"No. Like I said, Zuko was hunting the Avatar. Only the Avatar. He's not really a... steal-random-girls-from-their-villages kind of guy. And even though he was scary, he didn't hurt anyone; he only came to my village for information, and he used intimidation - not violence - to get it. He showed up, threw around a bunch of threats, got what he wanted, and then left."

There was a brief pause and Katara almost went on with her story, but the near-elder spoke up in her quiet voice. "Perhaps a lucky thing that he so easily got what he wanted."

"Yes," Pawe said, peering at Katara carefully. "From what Loska tells us about his behavior during the voyage after his capture of you and the Avatar, he is not at all averse to using violence when it suits him."

"Ah." Katara glanced at Loska, who frowned back at her, arms crossed tightly over her chest. It was not immediately clear what more had been revealed, but this she could deal with. "Yeah, he was being an especially terrible person then."

"He beat your brother every day," Loska snapped, her voice high. "I healed his wounds myself!"

"Actually, Sokka insisted that it was more like sparring..." She briefly described the practice swords and the watching guards. Loska quickly jumped back in.

"And what? The Fire Prince was so skilled he never took a hit himself?"

"No," Katara said, and unwillingly remembered that day she had walked in on him while he was bathing on his bedroom floor, naked except for his bruises. She remembered the healing he had demanded from her later in exchange for letting her talk to Toph - and she remembered the vicious argument they had had, the short fight that ended on the bed.

"He had injuries," she huffed, folding her own arms over her suddenly aching chest. "He just didn't want it getting around the ship that Sokka had managed to hurt him. It's like that with him; he's constantly thinking about his public image."

Loska made an offended sound and muttered something about her professionalism and of course she wouldn't have spread rumors, but no one was listening to that.

Sian, gathering up all the dishes to take away, caught Katara's eye and quietly volunteered, "It was being whispered amongst the servants that Prince Zuko had adopted many strange practices during his banishment. Prince Sokka had attacked him in the brig and Prince Zuko was disciplining him in accordance with Water Tribe custom by defeating him in combat as a superior warrior. Prince Sokka refused to yield every day, so it went on."

It was odd, seeing a Fire Nation woman so seriously use the title that Katara and Sokka had joked about months ago, but that wasn't why so many of the healers were sharing sideways glances.

"That doesn't sound like any Water Tribe custom I've ever heard. Bogara?"

The almost-elder shook her head in faint bewilderment.

"Does the South do that?"

Katara turned her eyes up to the ceiling in fond exasperation. "Not unless Sokka made it up and did it to himself."

Sian's cheeks pinked slightly as she hesitated, then finished. "It became widely known that Prince Sokka was a determined and resilient fighter. And Prince Zuko's ferocious temper and prowess in combat won him back a good deal of respect. If it was a ruse, it benefited them both."

She finished packing up the dishes and left the room, and several eyes followed her until she disappeared. Then Bogara spoke quietly.

"Why would the Fire Prince invent such a thing?"

Katara paused and rubbed the back of her neck. "Honestly, I don't know. He may have just wanted to feel like he was giving Sokka a sporting chance. He's big on honor, but-"

"That doesn't mean to the Fire Nation what it means to us," the wary woman spat.

Katara met her eyes and nodded. A silence stretched out across the table in all directions, filled with many thoughts and many memories.

"Please know I hate asking," Pawe said at length, her eyes flicking from the teapot to Katara and back again, "but I cannot not ask if we are to be allied with this man. You were his slave. What demands did he make?"

The words hung in the air, and suddenly the only eyes on Katara were Iyuma's, sad and steady. She replied quickly, firmly, not wanting to leave any false impressions.

"You have to understand first, Zuko never wanted me to be a slave. But he also didn't want to look weak or disappoint his father," she barely restrained the sneer as she said it, "so he couldn't just let me go once I'd made that oath. Since we got here, he has been trying to get me out."

A few eyes peered up at her now, uncertain and astonished. Someone asked about the oath and Katara quickly related the escape attempt and Azula using Sokka to extract the promise of servitude to Zuko. Heads nodded at that - and they would, Katara realized. That tactic, threatening a loved one, had forced many fighters to submit the same way in the North.

Iyuma was peering at her with narrowed, thoughtful eyes. "You've only been enslaved for two months now. Is that right?"

"No, I-" Katara blinked. And thought about it, shaking her head in disbelief. "There's no way it's only been..."

"You made the oath under the full moon during the voyage. Loska got back with the royal cruiser about a week before the last full moon."

"It's felt like years," Katara managed softly, peering around all the faces now watching her. "But you've all been here for..."

"Most of us were brought south about ten months ago," a younger woman volunteered quietly.

"Two hundred and eighty-nine days in the Fire Nation," Bogara provided. "Three hundred and forty-one enslaved."

Katara shook her head, trying to imagine. She had been forced so far from herself in just a couple of months, and her servitude had been so much a performance. She'd even spent most of the first month hanging out with her friends in the brig.

But the women around her...

"So Prince Zuko freed you pretty fast, all things considered," Iyuma said, tipping her not-unsympathetic face slightly to catch Katara's eye again. "Hm?"

"Iyuma," Pawe cut in, a chastening note in her voice and a tight line in her brow. Her words were hard and slow. "Some torments carry more weight than time."

Katara shook off her distraction and jumped back in. She couldn't leave them to fill in any blanks in her story with whatever horrors they had faced.

"Zuko didn't torment me," she finally continued, "but he was a jerk, and I was his slave. My role was to attend him at meetings and audiences. He had me give a waterbending demonstration under the full moon to terrorize the Fire Court - so later when I was following him around, even though I looked meek, nobles remembered what I could do. Zuko used my power to make himself look tough and to subtly intimidate people."

She hesitated before forcing herself to say the next thing. The thing that had felt so real where everything else had been more of an act.

"He... did demand that I speak to him like a slave is supposed to speak to their master. Especially around any witnesses. Particularly the Fire Lord." She didn't look up from her teacup as she said this, as the memory of his voice cut her all over again.

Don't use that snide tone of voice with me, especially in front of my father, ever again.

Logically, Katara knew that being openly defiant hadn't helped her cause; what had been so horrible about it was the way he said it. Cold and ruthlessly mean in the garden that night after the full moon party, when she was still so raw, only just realizing how trapped and helpless she was.

Helpless. Completely dependent on him to find a solution. And, yeah, he had found one eventually - but he sure had kicked her while she was down, too.

To Katara in this moment, surrounded by these particular women, it felt terribly childish to still feel so hurt over what boiled down to a few words. The healers - especially these healers who had been trapped in those third-list houses - had endured so much worse. And they hadn't been stupid enough to leave their hearts open and vulnerable for their captors to stab at their whim.

But to the healers watching her, especially Iyuma, her obvious pain was only reasonable. The Princess was clearly a proud and self-possessed young woman, and she had been forced to submit. Shame and diminishing of self were quiet tortures, but each delivered its share of agony and damage.

Katara straightened her posture and went on. "Privately, I mostly spoke to him however I pleased... Not that we were alone together much. He kept me in a suite adjoined to his, but for the most part he left me alone there." Her chest ached again and, absently, she pressed the heel of her palm against her sternum. "Mostly, I just knelt and poured tea during those meetings."

They were all looking at her now. There were some skeptically arched brows and a few very dubious faces.

"What I wouldn't give," the wary woman murmured, "to have simply knelt and poured tea."

Other women nodded, and Katara dropped her chin in acknowledgment, but Bogara only shook her head.

"Tui brings us favorable currents, and Tui brings us storms. Wishing does not turn one to the other."

"What about," Pawe waded in again before the quiet fully settled, "before the escape attempt, when he kept you in his rooms on the ship?"

"Nothing happened. Sokka was there with me."

"But... why did he do that?"

Katara froze, and all the wrong answers washed through her mind.

He thought I was pregnant with his child and didn't want me wasting away and miscarrying in the brig. Because even though I was threatening to usurp him, he still wanted the baby. Our baby.

You think I don't want my son.

The memory had stung before. But now, horribly, Zuko's words were accompanied by the image of him, just a few days ago, sitting straight and formal in his fancy clothes and cradling baby Jung to his chest like he was afraid of dropping him. He had looked panicky and irate... but there had been a softness to him that he hadn't been able to scowl away.

Katara heaved a sigh and rubbed her forehead, forcing the intrusive thoughts away. Even without them to distract her, she struggled to find a way to answer Pawe's question without inviting a storm of new, more condemning questions.

It hadn't escaped her notice that no one had accused her yet of willingly giving up her virtue to this extremely questionable ally. Loska was still watching her with a pinch in her brow - something between annoyance and worry. Maybe she still hadn't told anyone. Maybe she wouldn't at all.

Regardless, Katara suddenly realized that if she didn't steer this conversation, she risked landing somewhere she didn't want to go.

"It was for my health," she finally said, then rushed on before any more questions could crop up. "Look. Zuko has been a towering jerk plenty of times, but you need to know that he isn't... completely awful. If no one had cooperated with him at my village that day, he definitely would have said some hateful things and he might have burned somebody's hut... and he probably would have fought me if he'd known then that I was a waterbender," she waved a hand in the air a little impatiently as the list went on, "but he wasn't going to hurt helpless people. He can be a real bully sometimes, and he has a nastier temper than most ice bears, but he doesn't prey on people like bullies do. In fact..."

It was hard to set aside her reservations and say this. But it had to be said, sooner rather than later.

"In fact, the whole reason any of us are here right now is because Zuko has decided to help end the war. He claims he's going to create trouble here in the Fire Nation so the Fire Lord won't be able to cause as much destruction before the Avatar can stop him." She glanced over the wide eyes watching her and quickly shook her head. "This is new. A few days. I don't know exactly what he's going to do or how long it will last. Guards are already trying to arrest him and he's been... indecisive in the past."

She couldn't help how her lip curled when she said it, so she just forged ahead.

"So I'm not letting this opportunity slip by me. I'm freeing as many healers as I can. Zuko obviously doesn't know he's sheltering you right now, and I'm sure he's gonna have feelings about it when he finds out, but he's not going to hurt you."

They peered at her in dubious silence. Iyuma smirked but didn't voice whatever it was that was so amusing. Instead, Ulka let out a restrained sigh at Katara's side and did not raise her eyes from her hands as she spoke.

"This is... most tenuous."

"Personally, I'm more than willing to accept Princess Katara's assessment of the situation," Pawe said mildly as she set aside her empty bowl. "She is in the best position to judge the Fire Prince's character and it's not like any of us have a better plan. Our little sanctuary here may be tenuous, but it is a vast improvement over what we just escaped."

"Unless it lands us back where we started," the wary-faced woman said, dread thick in her voice. Loska's eyes slid to her, and Katara had never seen that particular expression on her face before. A sort of fragile sorrow.

"Keyu," Pawe started gently, but was cut off.

"It won't," Katara said with all her conviction. In the back of her mind, the cliff stretched up above her again, seemingly insurmountable - except for Suki, who had believed.

Someone had to believe.

"There's no going back," Katara said now. "There's no failure. Together, we will succeed and we will get out of the Fire Nation. No matter what."

They were all staring at her again, but she didn't back down. She held her head higher, daring any one of them to contest it.

But none of them did.

Of course, they didn't all look reassured either. But Iyuma smiled and leaned forward against the table.

"I don't think anybody's brought this up yet and now seems like a good time. I heard about Katara way before I met her. Katto of the Southern Tribe is actually kind of a legend..."

She went on to briefly describe rumors she had heard about the bare-knuckle earthbending pit fights and the rescue Katara had led on Zhao's supply station, then some of the more spectacular details about the escape attempt on the royal cruiser that must have been passing around among the guards. The stories were grander than reality had been, but now wasn't a great time to set the record straight.

"So when Katara says this thing is gonna happen," Iyuma shrugged, "the chances are actually pretty good it will."

There was a thoughtful silence, broken quickly by Ulka, who had fixed her bright eyes on Katara again. "I cannot bear the curiosity. It is unconscionable to withhold this story any longer."

A sturdy younger woman laid a hand on Katara's sleeve from her other side. "You left off with the Fire Prince sailing off after your father and brother. Please continue."

"Right, uh..." Katara cleared her throat. "I couldn't just stay at the South Pole and do nothing while Dad and Sokka were in trouble... So I ran away. Gran-gran cut my hair and I took off in a canoe-"

"A canoe? To cross the South Sea? That's-!"

"Your grandmother cut your hair," Bogara quietly interrupted, and her surprised face finally yielded up the faintest smile. "She gave you her blessing, then. You didn't run away. You were sent to war."

It was in her eyes - Good girl - only different now, subtly but significantly bigger than before. Katara ducked her chin, blushing and not totally sure why.

Gran-gran had known, she was realizing now, that her destiny was a bigger thing than either of them could have imagined. She had known it right from the beginning.

"Not so different from Princess Yue, I'd say," Pawe put in. "She answered the call when it came to her, too."

"Very different from Princess Yue," Loska grumbled.

As they talked, Katara realized she felt suddenly, horribly tired. This conversation had already been so draining, and it followed exercise and a night of tense activity. The thought of relating her whole story - with all the careful dancing around delicate information that she would have to do - made her sag on her sitting cushion.

So when a knock came at the door - not Machi's brisk ta-ta-tap but that other, heavy thunk-thunk - Katara was almost relieved.

.


.

When Zuko knocked at Katara's sitting room door, soft voices that had been speaking on the other side went silent all at once. There was a rustle of bodies quickly moving around. Then, Katara's nonplussed face appeared.

"Can I help you?"

Her tone was a little too polite. Her eyes were not as hostile as he might have expected. Over her head, he saw the bedroom door sliding quietly shut.

Something clandestine was definitely going on in there.

Maybe she was just being covert about training, but Zuko had a strong feeling there was more going on here than that. He couldn't quite stop the narrowing of his eyes.

"Can I come in for a minute?"

She scrunched up her face. "No. Why?"

"Machi's worried about the floors and, after you doused her in the hot spring, she doesn't want to push you." He tried not to make it sound like the accusation it was, because that was a pretty unkind way to treat a servant, but Katara seemed not to notice.

A tired, hard look settled onto her face. "Good."

Zuko's attention sharpened as he stared down at the narrow view he had of her and a stone dropped in his stomach.

It occurred to him suddenly that, when Pokui had taken away Katara's possessions, he had had no idea. Because Katara had not told him. She had assumed it was what he wanted, to be cruel to her even in his absence, so she had just endured that mistreatment in silence.

When Zuko had first learned this, he had resented her for once again thinking so little of him. But the truth was, she had been vulnerable. Her well-being had been his responsibility, and he had shirked that duty because he was too busy wallowing in his hurt feelings and avoiding her to notice her suffering.

No. It was worse than that. He hadn't wanted to see her suffering. Because it was his fault. Her suffering was his fault and seeing it on her face had shamed him.

It shamed him still. But Zuko wasn't turning his eyes away anymore.

"Did she overstep with you?" he demanded quietly, and if his voice was a little fierce, he didn't notice. "Katara, did she try to command you in the spring? Because she knows you're not a slave and if she tried to treat you like one, I'll fire her."

Katara drew back from the gap in the door and scoffed, incredulous. Then she stared at him, and then scoffed again. "You can't fire Machi."

"I can and I will. What did she say to you?"

"Zuko, you're not gonna fire Machi. She makes everything happen. She brought all our people out of the palace with her. You need her too much."

She had added a sardonic smile to the incredulous twist of her face. She thought he was bluffing. Zuko drew a deep breath and frowned at her as calmly as he could manage.

"I don't care about that," he said through his teeth. "I won't have another majordomo who thinks she can disrespect you, much less control or torment you. But you have to talk to me. I can't take the right action if I don't know what's going on."

The disbelief was fading from her face, but the look that remained was strange. Distant, uncertain. That girl alone in the woods, surrounded by her enemies.

Zuko had let that girl down when she needed him before. Not again. Not ever again.

He could not have guessed that Katara was not thinking of Pokui or Machi, but of the healers secreted in the bedroom behind her. It was occurring to her that maybe this was the perfect moment to tell him they were here. If she gave him the chance, what 'right action' would he take?

"You need to trust me - remember?"

She had been the one to say they needed to trust each other, she recalled. After Zuko gave Toph the clock and proved he wasn't completely horrible. She had been so desperate to be involved in the planning - any kind of action to cut the misery and helplessness her life had been then. She had been so isolated. Even Sian had been taken away. Zuko, after his initial nastiness, had been little more than a silent wall in the palanquin every day.

And then he was summoned to face the Fire Lord and told her she would need to escape if he didn't come back. She had paced in the garden for hours, waiting to see if he was really gone. And she had been afraid. Because Zuko may have been the origin of most of her misery, but he was also the last person around her who didn't want her internment to be permanent. So when he reappeared, she had been ready to trust. To try.

And now he peered through the narrow opening in her door at her, reminding her of her own words and very sincerely threatening to fire his majordomo over something that he wasn't even sure had happened. He shook his head slightly, holding out his open hands toward her as if urging her to accept some invisible gift.

"I'm on your side-"

Katara had doubts. Because no matter what she had said to the healers, she knew in her bones that trusting Zuko too much could end in disaster. He wouldn't hurt them, she was certain of that, but would he try to stop her from going back for the others? Would he insist she send them away or in some other way try to hijack her destiny?

She couldn't tell him about them. She didn't want to. Not yet.

But... she could still try to trust him, just a little more. Like inching out onto new ice, listening so closely for the crack.

"-so whatever happened-"

"Nothing happened," Katara said quietly, then sighed and shook her head. To Zuko, it was clear she thought he was overreacting. "She said I needed to come out and eat something and I didn't want to. She pushed me - in that annoying, obstinate way she has, not some kind of power move - so I splashed her. She didn't really deserve it..." Her jaw worked slightly to the side. "...but then she went and tattled to you."

"Oh. Well..." Relieved but also now stiffly awkward, Zuko twitched his shoulders up in a short shrug. "She is my employee. She has a right to come to me with concerns. And it was probably a pretty big scare for her when you started bending at her. In the Fire Nation, that's not really..."

He hesitated, searched for the right words. Words that were accurate but not as likely to start a fight as 'civilized' or 'humane' or 'something sane people do'.

"...fostering a safe work environment."

"Noted." Katara heaved another sigh and visibly forced away her anger and irritation. Almost grudgingly, she went on, "And now she's worried about the floors?"

"Something about warping." As he said it, he started to remember why he had come here. It wasn't really about the floors or more cracked-door contrition. It was about Katara and her mysterious distraction. Flowers and noodles. Girl stuff and lady-secrets.

"What, she thinks because I'm a waterbender that I'm going to dribble everywhere?"

"No! I mean, I did kind of suggest you might be continuing your bending lessons inside..." Zuko glanced up and down the corridor to make sure they were alone. "Are you teaching Iyuma that noodle technique?"

She stared back at him with the same annoyed moue, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

"The noodle-bending. From Gao Ling?" His jaw tightened. "Leave day?"

A look of startled delight sparked in her eyes and he could tell she was fondly remembering knocking him around with noodles, of all things. Zuko still gritted his teeth, but he watched her closely. The delight, and then the faintly smug, superior look that crept onto her face, gave him a soft thrill that soothed the raw feelings of moments before.

"Maybe I am and maybe I'm not," she said loftily. "I don't see how it's any of your business."

"Look, it's fine if you are but can I just come in and look at the floor? Two minutes. That's all I need."

Katara heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes as a dramatic precursor to turning her head to look over her shoulder. Then she shoved the door open and grandly waved him in. "Knock yourself out."

Zuko stepped past her warily and scanned the room. There were no dishes on the table but a few teacups and a matching pot. The floors appeared to be totally dry and clean - as did the numerous sitting cushions and the pallets that had also been laid out for some reason.

Zuko cast Katara an incredulous look. "What, are you teaching her tumbling in here, too?"

She blinked, then gave a little shrug-nod non-answer. Zuko heaved a sigh.

"It's fine to train in the courtyard or on the grounds, you know. Nobody here is spying on you. Your techniques will still be a surprise. And you have a right to be there. You don't need to hide in here."

-from me.

He didn't say it, but it was in the back of his mind after yesterday. There were so many reasons and ways she didn't trust him, so many things he had done to erode her trust. Was there even really a reasonable excuse for him to intrude on her privacy like this? Just being in this room, her public sitting room, felt like too much - like he'd negotiated his way into some kind of invasion.

So Zuko stopped looking around, and he stood near the open doorway and only peered at her as if to will her into seeing reason. Katara watched him a moment, one eye twitching as she stewed.

"I know," she said, impatience building in her controlled tone, "and I'm not hiding. It's just more comfortable here. As you can see, the floor is fine." She waved a hand, then folded her arms over her chest. "Do I need your permission to do as I please in my own room?"

Zuko hardly heard her question, because he was presently realizing that, at some point since this morning, Katara had changed into loose, comfortable clothes - and he was realizing that because, when she crossed her arms that way, her breasts pressed plushly together and upward. He was not directly looking - he kept his eyes resolutely glued to her face - but he saw it in his peripheral vision. And it could not be unseen.

"Yes- I mean no, you don't. It's fine." He scowled at the ceiling and attempted to refocus. He was here for a purpose and, since subtle investigating was out, he needed to just be direct. "How are you feeling? After this morning?"

"Once again, I'm fine. It wasn't that bad a hit. You can quit worrying about it."

"No, I really can't, Katara." He looked back at her and met her irate expression with one of his own. "Fire is unforgiving. I'm doing my part - my control is solid. But if you're not fighting me with everything you've got, accidents are going to happen. You have to bring your A game every time. Whatever's distracting you - and you don't have to tell me what it is, it's your business, I get that - but whatever it is, you've gotta leave it off the practice field."

For a second, she looked like she wanted to fight him now. Her face twisted from startled annoyance to anger - but then her eyes flicked to the bedroom door and she drew a deep breath and tamped it down.

Zuko followed the movement of her eyes. He had been sure it was just Iyuma and Loska back there, but she wasn't really shy about making a scene in front of them... and Loska had always seemed afraid of him, but she had never exactly hidden from him before. It was strange that she would start now. Was there someone else-?

"Maybe I'd fight you with everything I've got," she said in a too-calm voice, "if you stopped boring me."

"Boring-!" Zuko forgot all about his suspicions. "I'm meeting you where you are."

"Where am I, then? Back at the beginning? Half the time, you don't even try to hit me at all."

"As opposed to what? Knocking you around until you get hurt again?" Zuko crossed his arms and glowered. "No way. The training wheels stay on until I'm confident you're strong enough to take me. After that, I'll go as hard as you want - but I'm not risking it before you're ready, Katara."

There was a beat of silence during which her eyes widened and then she glared at him with a peculiarly intense expression. It wasn't rage exactly. More like reproach and panic. Her cheeks were blazing and her eyes kept snapping over to the bedroom door.

Zuko might at that moment have become certain that there was someone else listening behind that door - someone who did not belong in the house at all - had he not instead grasped the double meaning she had taken from his words. All other thoughts shot away like smoke plumes in a high wind.

"-my firebending," he went on stiltedly, his own face getting hot as he stared down at her. "Is what I mean. Will be... hard."

"Great," Katara snapped, throwing up her hands. In his peripheral vision, her breasts shimmied with her abrupt movements. "Thanks, Zuko. Really looking forward to all the fire. Can you get out now?"

"Yup." Zuko, feeling suddenly battered from too many angles, turned around and marched out the door and down the hall without looking back.

Absolute. Bumbling. Fool.

At least she seemed to realize that he hadn't meant it in such a provocative way. She had been annoyed, but not furious, and had not seemed to feel threatened. He didn't feel like he had wronged her - not like yesterday.

Instead, he just felt stupid. What had he been thinking? 'I'll go as hard as you want'? Idiot!

She heard what she wanted to hear.

For the first time in days, the hissing voice had hit upon a notion that truly tempted him. It shot through Zuko in a hot jolt, startling him to a full stop some paces from his office door. The voice hurled itself at this new weak point in his defenses.

Did you see how she blushed? She was imagining it right then. And the scene in her mind was not your near-silent love-making in the dark. She was imagining you... going hard. As hard as she wants...

The raspy voice came as if from a great distance. You said you would not try anything.

She's grown bored with your fighting; perhaps what she wants is a more demanding activity. Her mind would not drift to her little distractions if you truly exerted yourself. Think how pleasing it would be to work your flesh in hers with all your passion and devotion, all your fury and frustration...

You told her she was safe.

What safer place than in your arms and in your bed? She scorns your protection because she does not believe you're committed enough to protecting her. What she requires is hands-on demonstration. Prove your commitment with the full force of your ardor. Make her a believer.

You made a promise, Prince Zuko.

Is it really breaking a promise if she wants you to break it-?

"Yes," Zuko breathed aloud, shutting his eyes and clenching his fists and forcing away his errant thoughts. "It is."

He rallied and locked it all down, though the heated weight in his groin took a moment longer to go away.

Katara had no interest in him that way. That was reality. It didn't mean anything that her mind had flown to something sexual - not anything good, anyway. This very thing must have happened a lot over her time as a slave without Zuko even realizing it. Every time he had entered her rooms or ordered the servants away so they could talk, it had meant nothing to him, but to her, it was just more fuel for demeaning rumors.

She was concerned for her standing and her honor in accordance with Water Tribe culture. That was why her mind went where it did. That was all there was to it.

And, whether she liked it or believed it or not, her standing and honor were under Zuko's protection, too. He wasn't going to do anything that could endanger that. Because he had promised. He wouldn't try anything, he wouldn't let anything happen. She would be safe.

He set his mouth in a determined frown. The hissing voice slithered back to its hole, where it belonged.

Back in the safety of his office, Machi was waiting for him with a pot of calming tea already steaming on his table. His map had been carefully folded back out of the way, but it remained half open, ready for him to continue his work. Machi herself stood by the door, her head respectfully bowed and eyes averted, but her manner that of someone waiting.

Waiting to see whether her prince returned in victory or defeat.

"The floors are fine." Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose and wrestled back the frustration and embarrassment. "Just give her whatever she wants and leave her alone. Her maid can deal with it if there's a mess."

"It will be as you command, Prince Zuko," Machi intoned, perfectly level and devoid of any judgment or censure.

It didn't make him feel better, those signs of unwavering respect. What made Zuko feel better was the knowledge that he was getting stronger in ways he had not realized he had been weak before. It made him feel better that Katara had been annoyed and not furious at his faux-pas, that she had trusted him enough to tell him what happened in the spring, even though it was nothing.

It made him feel better to accept that he needed to trust her, too.

Whatever she was up to, whatever flowery, noodley lady-secrets she had going on, he didn't need to know the details. As long as she was safe and focused during training, he wasn't going to keep it on his list of worries. He wasn't going to press her about her secrets.

And knowing that made him feel... good. He felt like he was making a good decision.

But that was the full extent of Zuko's happy feelings.

No matter what she thought, Katara wasn't ready to help fight off royal guards, and she wasn't ready for the fight he needed her help most to win, not even with the full moon. He had to figure out a new plan to deal with that most frightening problem, and fast.

But the afternoon crawled past and inspiration didn't strike. Instead, a summer storm began rolling in out of the south, but for hours it refused to just start raining. The leaden sky seemed content to hover and reflect Zuko's anxious thoughts.

The runners would return in the evening bearing unexpected news. By night, rain would pound the city as if to knock it into the sea.

But the royal guard would never come.

.


.

But long before that, Katara shut her sitting room door and stood glaring at it as she drew several deep, calming breaths.

They may not have heard it. He hadn't been shouting or anything. More just... insisting...

...until I'm confident you're strong enough to take me. After that, I'll go as hard as you want...

Her neck prickled and she rubbed at it as heat gathered in her ears. A part of her wanted to laugh at his alarmed, embarrassed face. A part of her wanted to snarl that she was strong enough for anything.

And that sneaky force only grinned its anticipation. What a pretty promise...

But the biggest part of Katara drew one more deep breath and rubbed her neck a little harder, then focused on her immediate priorities. If the healers had heard him, she could still play it off - he hadn't meant it the way it had come out, he was just stupid like that... But she had a feeling her hot face was going to tell the truth for her.

Because Zuko may not have meant it the way it sounded, but she sure took it that way.

At length, she heard the bedroom door behind her open and turned to face the damage.

Iyuma shot her a wry look, but it was Pawe who spoke, frowning thoughtfully. "He certainly left in a hurry when you asked him to."

"Uh, yeah," Katara sighed, still rubbing her neck. Apparently she had been plenty loud.

"Was he threatening you?" Ulka said, a little wide-eyed.

"No, he just takes training really seriously." Katara rolled her eyes. "Actually, he takes most things really seriously."

"Including Katara's health," Iyuma said with an almost smug note. "She is still recovering from an intensive healing, after all."

It was like she'd lit up some secret healer signal. Every one of them assessed Katara anew, with the exception of Loska, who only looked on with tight-lipped dissatisfaction.

"I knew you looked peaky!"

"Girl, you need to rest. You were running all night."

"-thin as a rail-"

"-probably need a more varied diet, something gentler on the stomach than all that chili oil-"

"-most important thing is getting enough sleep, though-"

Overwhelmed and sure they were about to close in on her, Katara sidled between the women hovering in her bedroom doorway.

"You know what? I actually am pretty tired! I should really get to bed."

At last, they allowed her to retreat. Katara let out a sigh and put all the blinds down to keep out the worst of the sun. The faint breeze fluttered in and soft voices hummed from the sitting room. She drifted off almost the moment she laid down.

When she woke, wet evening wind was pressing through the blinds and she could hear the thunder mumbling through the bones of the house.

Before she even opened her eyes, she smirked.

Hours later, her smirk had only deepened. The rain made so much of her task even easier. It was dark - the nearly-full moon all bundled up behind the heavy clouds - but Katara didn't need to pick her way through the rocks when she was riding a wave of rainwater pulled up from the earth. She swept up the cliff path like a fury.

There were more guards everywhere. Royal guards patrolling the streets in rigid phalanxes. House guards patrolling the grounds of their estates. But in the dark and the rain, they carried lanterns and bent sputtering flames over their hands; they were blind to the wolf creeping in the night.

First, she picked her way around the city to the last of the third-list houses and lured the healers out the same as last time. Some she found in chains - which she broke - and some she found closely watched by house guards - who she knocked out and tied up. One by one, she took them back to the pass where they gathered, and held tight to one another, and waited.

A strange thing happened. Katara was passing from one property to the next when she saw a woman standing beside a guard near a large stone. There was no lantern between them, but the guard held a little lick of flame in her palm, so tiny it was not easy to see from more than twenty feet away. They did not see Katara coming, so she heard what they were saying.

"-probably not safe for you to wait with me. They might misunderstand and kill you."

"Who, me?" said the guard - and though her mellow tone was not familiar, her voice was. "I hear the Water Tribe won't kill women in combat. My friend Ming up at the tower said a warrior went out of his way to not kill her during the Avatar's escape. Had his sword right up to her throat and just stopped and tied her up instead."

"You think we're weak," the other woman accused softly after a moment.

The guard shrugged. "It's just kind of a strategic disadvantage, pretending a woman can't get the job done."

"Don't tell me what I already know, Sho. I want to leave still sort-of liking you." Almost idly, she raised her hands and dragged the rain out of her clothes, dropping it at her side. Then she began to pull the rain out of the guard's clothes, too.

The guard nodded with a rueful smile, then froze suddenly when she spotted Katara approaching. "Takima."

Takima spun to follow her gaze and dropped the rain she had just streamed from the guard's clothes. It fell on her feet in spatters. "I- I wasn't bending. I mean..."

Katara waved a hand. "In the Southern Water Tribe, we don't have that rule. Are you out here waiting for me?"

"Sho said that a bunch of healers went missing last night. I just hoped... whoever saved them would come back."

The guard was watching Katara with wide eyes. "That's the Southern Princess," she said quietly. "Remember, I told you she came through and sucked all the water out of the garden on her way back to the palace?"

Katara watched the guard back - the captain, she remembered, who had tried to apprehend her. She was wondering if she should worry about this witness, if this was perhaps a trap.

But Takima's eyes were shining and she grabbed Sho's hand briefly. The guard's faint smile was reassuring. "You're really her? Princess Katara?"

"Just Katara is fine. Are you ready to get out of here?"

They were always ready to get out. Most of them didn't know her at all, but some of them recognized her by one name or the other.

"Katto of the Southern Tribe... I never thought you'd come for me."

"My sister is in the next house over, Princess. Can we get her, too?"

"Lady Tam Rao told me all about you after that full moon party. She said you were so powerful, it was only a matter of time before you set things right."

"Please, Warrior - I know where my daughters are being kept."

Takima wasn't the only woman waiting out in the rain. Many of the houses on the first list seemed to have a healer wandering the grounds in the night. Katara gathered them up and guided them to the pass in small groups. She found one healer in the midst of being steered back to the house by guards. They all found themselves swiftly encased up to their noses in ice. The healer fell in Katara's arms, sobbing her relief.

Over her heaving shoulder, Katara raked a scathing look across all the guards' frightened eyes. "You're lucky I'm not killing pathetic bullies tonight. I'll be back when you're worth my time."

"Th-then you'll ne-hever be back," sniffed the healer as she straightened and, without a backward glance, walked with Katara into the night.

Even through the clouds, she could feel the moon sinking toward the horizon, but she wanted to check the house where the daughters were being kept. It was a lavish home from the second list, located very inconveniently among the lamp-lit streets near the palace.

The rain was still coming down hard when she crept into the house, but when she came out with the girls - both teens younger than her - following close behind her, the deluge had stopped. And packs of guards were roving the streets, now clearly visible in every direction.

The younger girl was crying silently, but Katara only smiled and arched her eyebrows.

"Don't worry. Wanna see a cool trick?"

And she raised the rain off the wet streets into a soupy fog that covered half the city.

Katara led the girls out, careful to cover their tracks as they climbed up toward the pass. She'd lost count of the number of healers she had collected tonight, but it was a lot more than last night. When they reached the pass, it was crowded, choked with women.

The girls' mother swept them up and wouldn't let them go even when she went down the slide.

Katara guided the front of the line down to the house, where Iyuma and Loska and the others welcomed them quietly in, then she backtracked, counting heads and making sure no one had fallen behind, clearing away any traces of their passing. Dawn was close - the air had that chill - and the rain picked up again as Katara climbed up into her bedroom and softly slid the door shut behind her.

And then there came a crash as her sitting room door banged open and soft voices cried out in fear.