They were sparring in the courtyard again, but Katara wasn't moving at her usual speed. She was bending with him almost the way Zuko had seen her bend with Iyuma - a gentle sweep of water, but this one stroked his bare chest like a teasing hand. It ached through him, almost as much as watching the smooth grace of her movements.
But not nearly so much as seeing the tiny smile tug her eyes as she looked back at him.
"Come on," she said, shifting toward him, shifting back. "I thought you wanted to fight."
But Zuko didn't really feel like fighting.
Her movements were slow, almost languorous. The collar was gone somehow and the bare flesh of her neck was calling him. He knew there was still some reason he shouldn't, but he wanted to taste her there. It had been so long since he had tasted her skin. He needed to press soft kisses down the cords of her throat, to lay his face against her and breathe her scent. He took a step toward her...
...but Chief Hakoda was standing on the rim of the fountain with his arms folded over his chest.
"Are you a good enough man, Prince Zuko? I have my doubts."
Zuko had a terrible falling feeling. Because that wasn't Chief Hakoda. That was the Fire Lord.
"Because you are neither strong enough to control her," Ozai smirked, "nor quick enough to save her."
All of a sudden, a dozen figures dressed in black dropped off the roof of the villa and burst out of the potted plants. They converged on Katara with long knives and her eyes rolled desperately toward him because she wasn't strong enough-
Zuko lurched upright, gasping, and threw himself staggering out of bed. Sweat prickled down his bare chest and back, clinging coldly to his neck.
Assassins could be anywhere. He had to check the grounds.
He got down the hall and had wrenched open the front doors before fully realizing it had been a dream. It was still raining outside, a steady summer rain that could go on for days, and water poured off the roof in rivulets. A breeze puffed fresh, humid air into his face and spattered his bare feet with cool droplets.
There weren't any assassins. Probably. Not yet, at least...
But, just as he shut the doors and would have turned back to try and meditate the remaining minutes until dawn, he heard it. A clatter of metal across the floorboards.
From Katara's rooms.
His footsteps were not silent as he sprinted to the end of the hallway. He didn't bother with caution. He only slammed open the door and leapt through into the lit chamber beyond, ready to attack.
Feminine voices gasped in shock and terror, and the very strangeness of that pulled him up short. Zuko just stood there, hesitating, fists raised in a ready stance as he assessed the threat.
The room was packed with women - sitting around the table, resting on pallets against the walls, a few standing together near the bedroom door. Those closest to where he stood were leaning away, looking away, trying not to draw his attention. Zuko estimated at a glance that there were more than twenty. However many there were, every set of eyes fixed on him in the instant when he appeared.
And then a specter of the past emerged from the back room and he forgot all about the other women. She darted between them, a stream of water poised around her like a ready viper. Her breasts were bound flat under her dark, rain-speckled tunic and her eyes were fierce behind her wolf face paint.
It was the girl from the valley. Even the color of her skin was gray and white and black from the moon shadows that had glazed her that night.
Zuko wasn't aware of his posture slipping as he stared at her, his hands losing their tension and drifting down. He was only aware she had recognized him and relaxed her own stance. She braced her hands on her hips and glared at him.
"What are you doing, bursting into my room?"
"I- I heard a noise," Zuko stammered, straightening. "I thought it was an assassin."
"Nope, no assassins here. You can go now."
"Who are all these people?" His voice was rising - but he knew who these people were.
He looked around the room again, reconnecting with reality. There was a... a brigade of healers in Katara's suite. Iyuma was holding the bolt-cutters. A few of them were still wearing collars. They were all different ages, their hair in many different styles, and many wore livery tunics representing different noble households. They were all staring at him - or the floor near him - with varying levels of tightly-controlled alarm.
"These are my people," Katara said, holding her chin very high. She was daring him to deny it, to challenge her, but Zuko was too busy panicking as he realized the implications of what he was seeing.
"This is what you were hiding? You've been going up to Caldera? Every night, you-? Alone?"
Her eyes narrowed, the first sign of genuine anger, but Zuko didn't see that.
He was remembering how she had felt in his arms after the Agni Kai, after he had scooped her up off the floor and fled the dueling court. She had hung there totally limp, a damp unmoving weight against his chest. The sight of her - blistered, charred, so terribly still - was a thing so nightmarish, the flash of memory made him physically cringe.
Zuko was not aware of it, but he had buried his fingers in his hair, still unkempt from bed, and he was staring unseeingly back at her.
She could have died. She could have been hurt when he was nowhere nearby to help her.
"I don't need-" she started, but Zuko cut her off, a roar bursting out of his chest. He threw his arms down, flameless but no less fearsome.
"I forbid it!"
To everyone else in the room, the ensuing silence was suffocating. The healers, so many of them having just arrived at a place that was supposed to be safe, sat frozen in horror. Every one of them knew they were seeing their host, the master of the house, and many had recognized his stance as a firebending form, but only a few of them realized this shirtless, wild-eyed, terribly scarred young man was also the Fire Prince.
It amazed them all the same that, faced with such a foe, Princess Katara's expression had gone from stewing annoyance to fury.
"You forbid it?" she asked, and for all that her voice was quiet, it was sharp as a honed blade. Her fists shook at her sides now, and she took a slow, threatening step toward him. "You think you have the right to forbid me anything?"
"Yes! This!" he snapped. "I forbid you to sneak off alone in the night, Katara! You can't just put yourself-!"
"You don't ever tell me what I can or can't do," she bellowed, drowning him out. She stalked across the sitting room toward him and stabbed a finger hard into his bare chest. He seemed to swell larger with every second, but the princess was unfazed. "You don't command me, your highness. Not anymore! Not ever again! Not to eat, not to stay, not to sit or pour your tea. If you try to stop me from freeing my people, I will go right through you."
She stabbed at him again with those final words and Zuko drew a great breath, his ears ringing from so much anger finally slipping its leash. He threw his arms out to either side.
"You think you're strong enough? Go ahead and try it! But I'll bet you're not," he snarled, looming over her and pointing one finger in her painted face. "You know why? Because you've been spending your nights playing Katto instead of recovering from the Agni Kai!"
She slapped his hand away and tipped her head to the side, challenge writ in every line of her posture. "You wanna see me play Katto? Fine. Let's go. Right now."
"Fine! I'll meet you in the courtyard!"
"Fine!"
Zuko stormed from the room, shouting a final "Fine!" over his shoulder. The door slammed behind him.
In the corridor, anxious servants hovered, clearly drawn by the shouting. When Zuko spotted Machi among them, he didn't slow down. He only barked orders as he passed.
"Princess Katara has guests. See to their needs."
He didn't listen for a response. He was too angry to talk. Too angry to think. Too angry for caution or reflection or restraint.
.
.
The princess turned around from slamming the door and cast her eyes over the healers. The anger wasn't exactly fading from her face, but it didn't have the same force when she looked at them.
"Don't worry," she said, slicing one hand through the air before her as if that would disperse the tension choking the room. "I'll handle this."
She returned to the back bedroom and whispers rose up among them, voices soft from long fear and practice.
"La save us. He's going to kill her."
"That was the Fire Prince? He looked like a brigand!"
"I'm sorry - did you say the Fire Prince-?"
"-wildest girl I've ever seen in my life-"
"...that temper!"
"-said he was an ice bear but she's all teeth herself-"
Loska listened to her sisters talk, but her mind slipped away. She had not seen the prince explode that way since his time on the royal cruiser. Then, his temper had seemed always on the brink of violence, but that volatility had diminished at some point during his return to the palace - a change that had been made evident during their discussion yesterday.
She had not mentioned it then, but there had been the notable exception of the night he had come running into the infirmary with the girl still smoldering in his arms. He had settled her in a healing bath, shouted a bunch of commands, and then hovered over them all as they worked through the night, looking one defiant word away from murder.
Loska was inclined to think that he was upset the way a child would be upset over a favorite pet being injured. He didn't want her to scar so that he could continue looking at her in inappropriate states of dress and... whatever other awful things such a man was likely to enjoy.
And he had brought up her injury tonight merely as a means of reminding her of her frailty.
Loska had never been fooled by his calm periods. Such a man, with rage steeped into his very bones, would invariably crack and spill his cruelty on those around him. It had only been a matter of time. And now, he would vent his wrath on the princess. Really, the only surprise was that he hadn't struck her here in this room, before all their watching eyes.
"He won't hurt her," Iyuma dismissed as she strained to snip the final collar off. "Didn't you hear what he was saying? He's mad because she's been endangering herself. He was worried about her."
Pawe scoffed from the pallet where she reclined, stroking her belly in a clear effort to soothe her own turmoil. "Worried? That looked like the anger of a man who doesn't have as much control as he thinks he should."
"I've seen them together," Iyuma said with a shrug. "I don't think that's it."
"Phuh," Loska scowled at the younger woman. "She has been testing him and she's finally found his limit. You'll see."
The princess emerged, her warpaint wiped away, and stalked through the sitting room. The look on her bare face was hard, but Loska had seen hard women crumble before.
A chill lanced down her spine as she watched the girl go. She really was so young.
With a grunt, Iyuma finished snipping the last collar and then glanced around the room. "Well, I'm not sitting around here waiting to hear how it went. Are you coming?"
Some uncertain glances were shared.
"I thought we weren't supposed to go out?" Keyu ventured.
"Ice cat's out of the bag now," Iyuma shrugged, then flashed her lopsided grin. "Besides. You all need to see her fight."
Loska watched the women all around her rise to follow. Some were not so sure, but no one wanted to be left alone in this strange new place, with their situation so suddenly changed and still so uncertain. Tenna tried to keep her girls from going, but they refused to turn from the warrior-princess who had saved them.
Finally, it was only Loska and Keyu, both watching the open door.
"I know we should go," Keyu said quietly, "but... I don't want to see what he will do to her. I have enough nightmares."
Loska hesitated for a long while, but then she clenched her trembling hands and climbed to her feet. "It is better to see it happen. Otherwise, we might forget. Besides, she will likely need us all to repair whatever he decides to destroy."
.
.
Katara paced the courtyard, pulling rain from the air to throw down in satisfying splats that did nothing to cool her rage. Zuko was going to lose this fight. She was confident. She wasn't really thinking now about the annoying restraint he always brought into their training sessions. There was just no way she wouldn't beat him in this rain. And after what he tried to do, she had boundless rage to burn.
Forbidding her to save her people. How dare he? How dare he?
How dare he try to stop her? How dare he get in her way when she had finally found her purpose? When she had finally wrestled off the despair and started actually making progress that mattered?
'I'm on your side'?
Liar!
And shouting at her in front of them! They would think he told her what to do all the time. They would think he was somehow in charge. They would think it was normal for him to show up at her room with no shirt or shoes on. In the night, still, technically.
She was going to destroy him in this fight.
At least he'd finally broken his stupid good-guy act and revealed that roaring monster she knew was really always under the surface. It was so satisfying to know she had been right. The sick swell of vindication made her pace a little faster.
And if she felt a fresh stab of betrayal, she had at least known it was coming this time. Although, seeing it coming didn't seem to diminish the sting. She had hardly trusted him at all, and still he'd had the power to hurt her.
Idiot!
She didn't notice the healers gathering around the doorway, crowding together under the awning, and she didn't notice when they parted hurriedly as Zuko stalked out of the dim corridor and passed between them.
But she noticed when he strode down off the steps with a broadsword in either hand. Still not wearing a shirt or shoes. Like he'd gone to his room to get the swords but hadn't noticed the breeze.
Katara curled her lip. "Swords, Zuko? You don't think the odds are stacked against you enough as it is?"
She held her arms out in the rain, her element dripping off every surface. If he was smart, he'd be terrified.
But he just took up a stance across from her. No bow today. And no fake topknot either - his hair just shagged around his ears, longer than she remembered it but not even to his eyebrows yet. The rain was already slicking it down against his forehead. His scowl was murderous.
"No," he growled. "Not nearly enough."
With a yell, Katara snatched a stream out of the air and slung it at him, wide and loose - but screaming fast.
Zuko launched himself at her, easily dodging the stream. He had halved the distance between them when Katara whipped it back from his other side. He must have read it in her posture, because he dropped to the ground and skidded beneath it, then popped up within striking distance.
But Katara was ready. She froze ice up around his ankles and in the same motion skated back out of reach.
His blade sliced the air inches from her throat. His glare was intense, his good eye as slitted as his scarred side.
Unheard, the healers gasped and flinched. But Katara didn't notice that. She had put them completely from her mind.
That slash probably should have frightened her. Could he even have stopped before he cut her throat open? But Katara wasn't frightened. Instead, she felt something she hadn't expected.
Exhilaration.
Finally. Finally he was coming at her with his full strength, leaving nothing held back. No more pulled punches. Not this time.
It really should have unnerved her that he was angry enough to fight her this hard, but instead it filled her with swooping giddiness. It reminded her what it had felt like to really match him. To really beat him.
It reminded her, in a subconscious place she did not examine, how fine he was.
But more immediately, it reminded her how good it felt to knock him down hard.
Katara raised a wave from behind him and, before he could bust his other ankle free, pounded him to the ground. With a short cry, Zuko went tumbling across the courtyard, but he didn't even pause; he rolled straight to his feet and rushed back in at her again.
They fought fiercely as the sun broke over the horizon, casting its dazzling light on the raindrops and raising a warm fog from the forest. Katara pulled water from the gutters, from the fountain, from the wet air to send Zuko staggering back again and again. He grunted and went rolling more times than she could count, but he kept leaping up and attacking, kept pressing her. She lobbed ice at him and he chopped it from the air, sometimes even launching chunks back at her. Again and again, she tried to trap him in ice, tried to pin him down, but he just kept slipping free. Evading, dodging, busting through.
It was not so long after the sun had risen above the clouds that the rain tapered off and Katara began to feel her fatigue. Breathing hard, her arms heavy from the long night and sustained effort, she raised a wave and froze it to trap Zuko's swords. One blade caught. The other broke through the top of the ice and kept coming.
And its tip slashed across her throat.
She felt it as a jarring, clanging impact that knocked her spinning hard to the side, and she immediately understood what had happened. The blade had hit the locking mechanism on her collar.
He had been aiming for it this entire time.
Pitched off balance, she staggered back - but Zuko was already on her. He had abandoned the trapped sword, because he no longer needed it. Still so fast, he darted in and snagged her wrist in a vise-like grip, then spun her into his chest so that his arm and hers wrapped across her front and pinned her with her back to him. His remaining sword pressed lightly against her throat.
This time, the blade was cold against her skin.
He growled something behind her ear but, for the space of a heartbeat, his words didn't solidify in Katara's mind. She was aware only of the overwhelming closeness of him. His breath and his voice spilled down her neck. The heat rolling off him prickled in contrast to the cold sword on the other side of her throat. His arm did not touch her bound breasts - but hers did, and he held it clamped in place with exquisite pressure. His chest was hot and firm against her back, swelling against her with his steady breathing.
And against her backside, she had felt him brush past in the instant when he had set his feet. A distant part of her that had not so long ago been very interested in such things took note: not hard... but not entirely soft either.
He had won. And for that one, imprudent heartbeat, she wondered if he might demand a reward-
Another of those kisses.
-but all at once, his words snapped into focus. It was a demand, but not the one that had come to her mind.
"Look at them."
Katara's focus shifted beyond the close, steamy world between them, and she saw. The healers stood watching, more than a few clutching each other or holding their hands over their mouths. They were all there. Ulka, Bogara, Loska...
"Remember what Azula did to Sokka," Zuko said quickly, too quiet for them to hear. "Think about how it might go wrong if you're up in Caldera alone and somebody gets hold of one of them like this."
Katara's stomach dropped. Because, no, she hadn't considered that possibility. And her people watching her now - the girls' mother was trying to cover their eyes - they all looked afraid. They had watched her battle and now they were watching her lose. She was their one hope, their one defender...
...and right now she looked like the leverage that could keep someone else in line.
"I'm not saying you shouldn't save them," Zuko rushed on. "Because you should. I'm glad you are. But you have to be careful. And that means not doing reckless stuff alone when you could have backup."
A distant part of Katara remembered when she had ridden in a lightless tunnel with this same boy pressed against her in a very similar way. They had been going into a fight together, had goaded each other beyond fear with covert touches in the dark.
We'll be outnumbered a hundred to one.
"All you have to do is tell me," Zuko said now, "and I would be there."
But Katara was not really thinking of that boy right now. She was thinking of that roaring monster, that spoiled prince - whose voice had gone so soft now that he thought he'd won.
But this fight wasn't over yet.
Katara refused to lose to him in front of her people. She refused to submit to him, or to the weary drag of her body, or to that sneaky force tugging her toward her own destruction. She was Katto of the Water Tribe. She was the Southern Princess. She was a warrior and a hero with a destiny.
And right now, her destiny was to show her people what they could do.
In all, they were locked together for a matter of seconds. To the healers, who could see the prince's tense expression as he watched them and spoke quick, quiet words, it passed as smoothly as a pause in a dance.
Suddenly, the princess took the lead. And she must not have cared for what he said - because she took it savagely.
Katara used a dirty trick. With a subtle gesture of her free hand, she froze the water on his skin - and the water saturating his pants. He made a tiny, choked sound of shock, which she heard very clearly with his mouth so close to her ear. But she was already in motion.
She didn't bother trying to get her arm loose. She reached up with her free hand and grasped his where he held the sword against her throat; she wasn't strong enough to overpower him, but she didn't need to be. All she needed was to steady the weapon and keep it from cutting her while she dragged Zuko's stunned weight with her as she shifted-
-and pulled up a fist-hard stream of icy slush to blast over her shoulder where she knew his face was. Zuko staggered back. Before he could get his bearings, Katara snapped the water up from all the puddles with a fast and vicious movement of her raised hands. The puddles knifed up into spears of ice. Any one of them could have run him through-
-just like Sokka-
-but instead, she trapped Zuko in a tight thicket of icy bars. His arm had been caught low at his side as he backed up, though the sword itself, and his wrist, stuck out. There was a stung red mark on his cheek from the slush-strike. His eyes were wide, surprised at this sudden turn of events.
Katara couldn't help herself. She smirked.
In a heartbeat, his eyes traced her mouth with telling focus. With heat. But almost immediately he grimaced and looked up to the cloudy sky, breathing deeply through his nose. The quality of the focus on his face shifted.
She waited a second, holding her stance. But there was no explosion of ice. No fire. Zuko just hung in there like an unhappy moose-lion cub, sending up only faint trails of steam.
"Aren't you gonna firebend your way out of there?"
Zuko turned his scowl back on her. "I'm not firebending with you when I'm this angry. It's not safe."
"Oh!" Katara smiled sarcastically and touched her forehead as if remembering. "That's right, because you're deeply concerned for my safety and that's why you're being such a raging bully."
"Yes!" he erupted. Something behind his eyes snapped and he let loose again. He bared his teeth as he shouted. The sword jerked around impotently at his side as his fist clenched and flexed through his fury. "I'm obviously concerned for your safety, Katara! That's why I'm angry! You were just hurt and now you're throwing yourself into so much danger! You'll end up fighting an army of royal guards if you're lucky!"
Here it was: the monster, the raving tyrant that Zuko kept trying to hide. Finally!
Only... as Katara watched him work himself up, his eyes going wide and desperate and the sword making short stabbing motions up the mountain toward Caldera, she realized this wasn't the same at all. This wasn't the spoiled prince ranting at her for never loving him and breaking her promise. This was... something else.
"But Azula won't miss a chance to face you again - and the Fire Lord won't settle for an oath if he gets his hands on you! He will-!"
He stopped suddenly as if unable to go on, crazy-eyed and snarling. It was the look on his face that finally made it sink in, that made Katara accept it. Zuko was afraid. He was terrified at the thought of what his father and sister would do to her if they caught her.
It didn't fix anything. She was still furious with him. But she couldn't just dismiss everything he was saying because he was having a childish tantrum, either. He wasn't blaming her. He wasn't trying to intimidate or bully her. He wasn't even criticizing her, exactly.
He was freaking out because he was scared. For her safety. And, to Katara's disgust and frustration, he had a point.
So even though it was on the tip of her tongue to defend herself, to make bold claims about what would or wouldn't happen, she hesitated, watching him with narrow eyes.
Finally, Zuko seemed to regain control. He took another big breath and lowered his voice, though his scowl remained. "It's really hard to convince myself I'm being unreasonable when you've been taking such a crazy risk without me even knowing about it. Which-" His mouth did another of its bitter twists, but he kept his eyes on her until, finally, he seemed to resign himself to going on. "I'm not gonna stop respecting your privacy, and I... can understand... why you didn't trust me enough to tell me what you were doing, but I'm also really struggling not to feel like you've been making a fool of me."
Sensing solid ground, Katara lunged for the thing she knew how to respond to.
"And we mustn't diminish the prince's royal dignity," she said through her teeth. "How awful it must be to have someone make you look foolish in front of an audience!"
His eyes widened and the anger was swiftly replaced with shock and recognition. But Katara had started, and now she didn't care to stop.
"At least my people aren't having a big laugh at how meek and accommodating you are, like you were somehow designed to be dominated and used. No, my people-" She pointed at them, the fear slowly fading from their faces, and glared back at Zuko to watch him watch them. "-are scared of you. And for good reason. Most of them just got here this morning. They've been living in terror of the Fire Nation, and now their first impression of you, personally, is a domineering brute who bursts into my room half-dressed, forbidding stuff whenever he feels like it and turning disagreements into physical fights."
Never mind that it had been Katara herself who had done that last bit - and wouldn't the mothers find that charming? She shut the thought away for now. Zuko could hold her share of the embarrassment for a change.
Apparently genuinely taken aback by this characterization, he made a noise of protest. He drew a breath and, just from the shape of his mouth, Katara knew he was about to bring up the assassins again. But then he paused, his eyes again flicking over the gathered women. "I didn't mean to do that."
"But you did," she insisted, tipping her chin up and drawing her shoulders back to fold her arms high over her chest. "So what are you gonna do to make it right?"
Zuko seemed to think for a moment, then looked back at her, a slightly uncertain tilt to his one eyebrow. "I... could start with an apology."
Katara rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Great. I can't wait to hear this. 'I'm sorry I'm a jerk with anger problems-'"
"Would you let me try first and save the mockery for afterward?" he loudly demanded, his eyes widening with fresh fury. But he immediately flinched and calmed himself. Very quietly, grudgingly, he added, "Please."
His face was reddening now from more than just the slush-strike.
He did look pretty foolish, caught in the ice and still waving that sword around. And her people were still watching... and probably the servants, too... but Sokka was lingering at the back of Katara's mind, and the Sokka in her mind folded his arms and arched his eyebrows and smirked.
Real rule. Didn't make it up.
"Do you yield to me," she asked sweetly, "as the superior warrior?"
Zuko glared back at her, and his face got redder. "Unless you want to attack exclusively from my left at close range," he said a bit nastily as the sword made a tiny slash in the air, "I guess I have no choice."
Katara only waited patiently as more steam curled off him. Finally, the sword clattered to the paving stones and he said the words, rolling his eyes the entire time.
"Fine. I yield. You're the superior warrior..." His voice was low already, so Katara hardly heard when he added, "...this time."
She primly pretended not to notice and, with a twist of her foot and hands, released the ice to water. It sloshed down off of Zuko and spread out over the paving stones, leaving him to straighten from the awkward stance he had been caught in.
She'd actually forgotten... For a heartbeat, Katara's eyes were riveted to the water dribbling down his muscular torso, to the almost indecent cling of his drenched pants-
She spun on her heel and addressed the healers. "Prince Zuko has something to say."
Her people were still watching - but now with more expressions of confusion and disbelief than fear. Katara folded her arms over her chest and turned an expectant stare on Zuko. But he was already approaching the healers with a rigid, formal bearing. She could only stare at his back in annoyance that quickly morphed into shock.
Some of the healers shuffled nervously as the prince approached, but almost all of them shared the same feeling of mingled bewilderment and disquiet. They had witnessed the warrior who had saved them fight this young man with skill and impressive power - really, she had battered him so roughly that many of them had at some point winced in sympathy for the bruises and scrapes he had accumulated tumbling on the hard stone drive. (They were healers, after all.) But he had kept coming with remarkable tenacity, and for a moment he seemed to have won.
All but one of them had believed they were about to see the princess's blood spill.
Instead, the prince had just talked, fast and quiet near her ear, his eyes on the healers the entire time. The look on his face had not been entirely angry - though it was hard to tell with that scar. But, whatever his terms had been, the princess evidently had refused them. And then, in movements so quick and fierce that many of them had missed them entirely, she became the victor.
And... it seemed... the argument had resumed...
More and more of them began to glance at Iyuma, shocked to find that that smirking teenager may have been right. Even Loska shook her head and scoffed, hardly able to accept what her eyes were seeing.
And now the Prince of the Fire Nation stopped at the bottom of the steps and performed a short bow - to them.
He still looked like a brigand, with no shirt or shoes and his loose pants sodden and his scruffy short hair tousled from the fight. But his bearing belonged to a prince - straight and true - and the expression on his face was carefully aloof but did not conceal his sincerity. The words he spoke were a gentleman's.
"I apologize for my rude interruption this morning and for my lack of decorum. I do not normally treat Princess Katara or her guests in such a manner. I also... normally wear all of my clothes..."
Whether it was because of the apology or realizing his state of dress under the eyes of so many women, the Fire Prince was blushing. It was easy to tell with his chest bare, a big pale contrast to the pink building in the cheek and ear that were not twisted and scarred.
The scar on his back, however, which Katara could see very clearly now from where she stood, was huge and ruddy, sprawling from his shoulder blade to the back of his arm and down halfway to his waist. The sight of it startled her a little bit - because she had forgotten just how big it was.
Yotsu appeared like a phantom and Zuko shrugged quickly into the stately robe he offered. He went on, hardly missing a beat and holding himself like he was addressing the Fire Court itself even as his valet hovered, doing up his toggles and tying his sash with nimble fingers.
"And... since a pretty good number of you are here..." Yotsu withdrew and Zuko's tone shifted, firmed into something more measured and weighty. "The Fire Nation has treated the Water Tribes and you especially, the healers of the North, with unspeakable cruelty. Your homes and families, your culture, and your personal autonomy have all been targeted and taken from you. That was wrong. And the acts of war that the Fire Nation continues to inflict on you, your people, and the world, are wrong."
Katara recognized that tone of voice. It was the same tone he used when addressing some complaint in the audience hall, when he was delivering a decision he had thought through in advance. It sent a jolt through her, because clearly he had been preparing for this moment.
Even though he had had no idea they were here, Zuko had taken time to consider what he would say when he came face-to-face with a large group of healers.
And even though he was angry about how they got here, he was delivering his statement now, at the first opportunity.
"As the heir apparent, I offer my deepest apologies for the mistreatment to which my nation and my people have subjected you." He bowed again, deeper this time, and went on in a slightly less formal register. "But I've come to believe that apologies don't mean much if there isn't any substantial effort made to repair the wrong that was committed..."
Katara became abruptly aware that her jaw was hanging slack and clicked her teeth shut. Intense emotions were tearing through her chest like whitewater, but she could not name them.
"...so, it's my hope that, with Princess Katara's help, I can offer some measure of comfort and justice going forward. For now, whatever protection and support I can provide you, it is yours. My majordomo, Machi, is arranging accommodations for you in my household. Don't hesitate to ask for anything you need. Welcome to the Gan villa."
He raised an arm to indicate Machi, who had come to stand in the doorway among the healers. Her expression was one of polite benevolence and only the closest observer would note the faint panic of a majordomo very suddenly directed to accommodate a great many houseguests in a house that was not fully hers to command. The houseguests themselves looked on her and the prince with bemusement, anxiety, skepticism, resentment, relief, shock, mistrust - a whole flurry of complex reactions that Zuko was trying to memorize without appearing to watch at all. Meanwhile, the face of every member of the combined household staff who had not yet been wrangled into preparing rooms was peeking out the windows with rapt attention.
But all such details were entirely beyond Katara's notice. As Zuko raised his arm, her eyes swept past the expanse of his back and lingered on the place where the scar was now hidden. In her mind she could still see it, big and red and sprawled out like a continent. A distant land where distant things had happened... somehow still here, still so close to hand.
Because it had never really vanished over any horizon. It had just been out of sight for a while.
The new Zuko was taking a firmer shape before her, cobbled together from pieces of all the previous Zukos. He spoke to her people with earnest conviction. He apologized with gravity and compassion. He fought with all his might. He faced daunting challenges and tried with his whole heart.
And he still raged like a monster... but that part of him wasn't in charge anymore.
At least, not so far. He was clearly still wrestling with it. Katara frowned and hugged herself tighter. She could be patient if she had to. She would wait and see how things shook out. Her broken heart still howled its fury and despair at the unfairness of all of this-
Too late! Too late!
-but that part of her wasn't in charge anymore, either.
She had a purpose beyond her hurt, and the faces of her people - many of whom looked reassured or at least unafraid - were a balm on her emotional wounds. If this new Zuko was really going to help her to help them, she wasn't going to let her feelings or her fears get in the way anymore.
But there was an expansive distance between not actively fighting his involvement and trusting him to be reliable. Katara would wait there. And she would see.
In the crowd of healers, her eyes caught on Iyuma, who was staring back at her. Her smile was smug, and she lifted one eyebrow as if to say What, you're surprised? or You're the one who said he was honorable.
Or maybe Yeah - I definitely get it.
Katara shook her head shortly and frowned back. You don't know. You only think you do. That's when he wrecks you.
Zuko excused himself and turned back to face her. Katara tried to school her features to indifference. Rain still saturated her clothes and boots but it did not occur to her to bend it out. She only stood straight with her arms crossed tight, watching him step closer, barefoot in the puddles.
"That was..." She hesitated, frowning, not sure how to finish. Zuko met her eye and waited for a long moment, seeming almost to hold his breath. But Katara couldn't settle on any words, so she finally just nodded.
His shoulders either relaxed or slumped slightly - it was hard to tell. He drew a breath to speak, but Katara found herself speaking first.
"Did you come up with all that yourself or is there like an etiquette guide for war crimes?" The words were harsh, but her tone wasn't. She fixed him with a look of dry query. Zuko stared back at her, seemingly surprised. He looked away, squinting off to the side and rubbing the back of his neck as he replied.
"I couldn't find an official formal apology that exactly fit the situation. I guess... if you're someone who believes it's okay to enslave people, you probably don't think a whole lot about how you'd apologize for it later..."
"Shocking." Katara examined the uncertain set of his lone eyebrow and thought of the looks on the faces of her people. "It was a good start."
Those eyes snapped back to her and, like clouds parting, that look from yesterday reappeared. The bright, hopeful eyes. The tiny upward curve of his mouth.
The glow that seemed to seep into Katara's skin.
"I should go," she said hurriedly, "...to... make sure everyone... gets settled in alright."
She took two steps around him, but he just turned to continue facing her. "Machi's handling it," he said with a shrug. "Besides... we need to talk. Privately."
Katara froze. Her skin prickled and she stared at the healers on the steps instead of looking at him.
Is it my turn now? Does he mean to lure me away and recite some formal speech that's supposed to make me feel better? Make me believe he's really, definitely this great person now?
She wasn't sure whether the feelings flooding her at the thought were more closely related to anticipation or dread.
The healers were all turned toward Machi as the majordomo asked something about sharing rooms. Bogara offered a quiet answer. Katara had a feeling that security was right over there, that she could escape from the uncomfortable place she was hovering in right now... that she should...
"There are developments you need to know about," Zuko went on - though he could not have known what a relief it was that his mind was in a pragmatic place instead of a personal one. "And... keeping each other in the dark is only gonna cause more problems." There was a faint note of censure in there, but his wording made it hard to really take it as criticism. "Will you join me in my office?"
She could sidestep being alone with this new Zuko. Her fear was clamoring to warn her that she should - but it was deadlocked with other parts of her. Katara had a duty to her people. Developments sounded serious. And Iyuma and Loska could handle making sure people were being taken care of, but only Katara could parlay with their host.
She needed to be so very careful, though, because the sneaky force was pointing out how good her body felt after that fight - loose and warm but still coiled with tension that called for some further release.
On the steps, Iyuma caught Katara's eye again and, smirking, made that skittering gesture.
Frogtopus.
Startled from her brooding, Katara scoffed and didn't quite manage to keep the faint smile from her face.
A cloud of jerk-ink to conceal his fear. Sure.
"What is she doing?" Zuko asked in a mildly disgusted undertone. He had apparently followed her stare. But he quickly looked back at her, a thoughtful furrow in his brow. "She can come, too, if you want. To my office."
Katara shook her head and narrowed her eyes at this sudden change. "Iyuma can come to the private talk. Why?"
He heaved a breath and his mouth formed an unhappy downward curve. "So there's a chaperon. To assure your people nothing... disreputable is going on."
Of its own volition, Katara's head tipped to the side. "Disreputable?" she repeated with mild distaste. "What, are you gonna try to sell me stolen curios?"
Zuko jerked his head back like an offended ostrich-horse. "No- You know what I mean!" He pulled in a breath and lowered his voice, tipping his head slightly down toward her, holding out his palms to either side. "Katara, I don't want there to be any more rumors. I want to protect your honor and show you the proper respect."
Looking up at his exasperated, serious face, Katara felt a terrible swooping sensation in her chest, like what a mouse must feel when a hawk pounces just an inch shy of its target.
Maybe a chaperon wasn't such a bad idea.
But she turned her eyes back to her people. "I don't want a chaperon," she said quietly. "Chaperons are for maidens being courted by their suitors. And that's not you and me. At all. At best, I'm a warrior, and you're my ally. I don't want a chaperon hanging around my strategy meetings like I'm some little girl who needs a minder."
It was true. She had shrugged off that too-small parka, had decided she didn't want to pretend to be something she no longer was... And it shocked her a little bit to realize it but, after her weeks in the Fire Nation following the rigid rules laid out for slaves, she couldn't stomach the thought of living under the restrictions good Water Tribe maidens accepted. She wasn't bowing her head and submitting to her role anymore. Not for anyone. Not even for her own people.
Unnoticed, Zuko was watching her steadily, worry cutting lines around his eye. "What about your honor?"
Katara sighed and didn't look at him. "It'd be pretty dishonest for me to go around pretending to be a proper maiden, Zuko. Especially when the people I'd be deceiving have gone through the kinds of things they have." Abruptly, she turned a measuring look up at him. "You do realize these women have probably almost all been assaulted, right?"
His eyes widened and turned back to the mass of healers. There were so many of them, he was thinking, but not even close to the full number that had been transported to Caldera. He spotted at least a few who were significantly younger than he was. Kids, practically. Women old enough to be his mother. Older.
People who should have been protected. Respected.
He spotted Iyuma, grinning bigger than he'd ever seen and talking excitedly to a tall woman. Loska, who had always been afraid of him, was not far away, shooting Machi sour looks and whispering to another, more troubled-looking healer.
"I knew it must have happened," he said quietly, "but... all of them?"
"I don't know," Katara said, "and I'm not about to ask. They'll talk about it if they want to. It's enough just to be aware that the possibility is there and try and be sensitive. And for me, that means not pretending that I held onto some pristine virtue that got stripped away from them. And... also not pretending that my situation is the same as theirs, either..."
Zuko looked back at her, not sure what this meant exactly. Was she... telling her people what had happened between them? The look on her face was tired but resigned, like she couldn't see a way around something very difficult.
"What's the plan, here?" he finally asked. "I need to know so I can back your play."
Katara looked up at him and for just a second her eyes were wide and blue and... they seemed to be seeing him, not some ugly version of him, but the real him, the him that was here now beside her. And she looked both relieved and afraid, as if she was glad he was there but she expected he might at any moment stick out a foot and trip her.
Then she puffed out a mirthless laugh and looked back to her people again. "Just treat me like a warrior. That's all I've got."
"Then we're off to a good start," Zuko said, folding his arms over his chest and fully turning to watch the healers as well. He pretended not to notice her sideways glances.
"A good start?" she scoffed. "We had a shouting match and a fight. How was any of this good?"
"We negotiated and came to an accord. That's pretty much-"
"Negotiated? Was that the part with the swords, Zuko?"
"Part of it. Listen, I know the Water Tribe loves their touchy-feely peaceful cooperation-"
"As civilized people do."
"-but I can't just hug out my frustrations." He peered down at her from the corner of his eye. "And I don't think you want that either. We're both fighters. And sometimes we're gonna butt heads. After today, your people know it's not the end of the world when it happens. We're still on the same side when it's over."
She kept staring at him, shaking her head in incredulity, then huffed and looked away. "The mothers are gonna think I'm a brawler."
"So what if you are? You're fearless and you stand up for what's right." He shrugged and stole a longer sideways look at her. Her bound chest and her plain wolf-tail. "Katto got respect for being a brawler."
"That was with a pack of boys - not esteemed women of the tribe. Trust me, this is a different world. They'll find my lack of restraint childish and unladylike. Going toe-to-toe with you is not gonna earn me any respect from this crowd."
"Unladylike?" Zuko asked with a curl of his lip. "You're a warrior. How do they think of warriors who get in arguments that come to blows?"
"Also childish," Katara said, sliding her large, scornful eyes pointedly to him - but they shortly turned thoughtful. "But I guess it is kind of more tolerated when warriors do that kind of thing."
Zuko watched her, the worried line deepening in her brow. He wanted to press his thumb to it and soothe it away, but as soon as the thought occurred to him, he stomped it down and looked back at the healers, who were beginning to follow Machi into the house.
"Huh," she finally said.
She was listening to him. She hadn't sneered at him once throughout their conversation, and now he had said something that helped her. Zuko allowed himself the faintest smile - which dropped as soon as he remembered... she didn't want a chaperon.
The second he had thought of a chaperon, he had realized it was a stroke of genius that would remove two troubling worries from his list. Firstly, the public perception of Katara spending time alone with him. Which... in the complicated situation she had described, maybe that wasn't as much of a concern as it used to be... but Zuko was still concerned about it. He was committed to upholding her honor and her standing with the Water Tribe. It was an important part of making things right.
Yet now, it seemed like Katara's honor as a girl was in conflict with her standing as a warrior. He got the feeling that she was abandoning the former in favor of the latter, and it alarmed him, because that seemed like it had to be a bigger deal than she was trying to make it out to be.
The second and more immediately concerning worry that a chaperon would have eliminated was the reality of being alone in a room with Katara, with no one to distract them or witness them.
It excited him, the thought of that - and the fact it was so exciting made him very nervous.
"Hey!" Katara shouted suddenly. A bunch of faces turned toward her, blue eyes fixed on her. "Bending lesson in an hour. Iyuma, tell them why it's a good idea to attend."
Iyuma's face split into another grin and she saluted. "Yes, Sifu Katara!" Then she turned to talk with the healers around her and the group resumed trickling away.
"So. You have an office?" Katara raised her eyebrows at Zuko.
He scoffed, a little insulted by the question. "Of course. Where else do you think I make plans and write letters? I... actually spend most of my time there now..."
"Exciting," Katara surmised. With one hand, she dragged the water from her clothes and sent it splashing into the fountain. "Alright. Private talk. Let's go."
