Zuko glowered at Katara's receding back until he could no longer see it, then glowered at Lord Gan.
"Forgive me if I misunderstood your instructions," the noble said carefully, his eyes darting toward the stairs and back to Zuko. "Was there to be only one cabin?"
"No," Zuko snapped, then drew a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You had it right."
"Then... if your highness is ready, I could show you the way to your cabin as well."
Zuko was absolutely ready. The stubborn erection he'd been fighting for the last few hours had diminished somewhat and could thankfully be concealed by his loose outer clothing, but his desire lingered as a dizzying distraction. He needed, with aching desperation, to be in a private room, and he needed very much also to not be standing around chit-chatting with this dangerously observant man.
But he needed more to be sure that Katara was out of the hallway. Because he absolutely did not want to know where her room was. Because if he knew, he would think about going there. His mind would spin and spin around the possibilities - her inviting him in, her sleeping so soundly he might sneak through the door unnoticed, not to do anything really, just to be around her... After all, he had watched her sleep yesterday and it had been perfectly innocent...
But Zuko knew he did not want to be in her room, where her bed was, to watch her sleep in it. Not this time. And while he knew realistically that he would not go to her even if he did know where her room was - because he had promised nothing would happen, he had promised - it was more that his mind would fix on it and he would be unable to relax when he needed to rest.
Which he would do. After he dealt with himself.
"And," Lord Gan went on in a faintly exploratory tone, "if there is any whim your highness should wish-"
"There was only one eel-hound," Zuko managed finally, a biting complaint being the best he could presently do. "I won't be able to transport much back to the capital on just one mount that's already carrying two riders."
"Inconvenient, but not a major setback," Lord Gan transitioned easily, gladly. "After we part ways, the ship will bear us on to my lady-wife's cousin's beach house in the north, then loop around to Harbor City. Little of the shipment was ever going to be able to travel with your highness in any case." His mild smile widened a bit. "The most critical goods, however, are not too terribly cumbersome and would be best delivered quickly to your new home. Daga informs us they won't keep terribly long, even packed in ice."
Zuko nodded, his eyes straying to the doorway through which Katara had disappeared.
"Is her highness aware of the nature of those particular goods?"
"It's supposed to be a surprise."
"It would still be a surprise for her people," Lord Gan said with an overly-graceful wave of his hand, "and if the princess might be surprised in advance in a more intimate setting, that hardly seems like it would diminish her pleasure."
Zuko glared at him for both the suggestion and the wording. "She'll want to share that moment with them. Not me."
Lord Gan bowed his head in assent. "I am certain your highness knows best. Yet..." He tipped his head slightly to one side, casting Zuko a thoughtful look. "I feel it is my duty to admit to you - both as a loyal and proud supporter of your highness's incipient administration and as a fellow man - that it took a great deal of time and many such minor enticements to entreat Yaza."
Zuko scowled but did not interrupt. Lord Gan, seeming to take this as tacit permission, went on.
"If you mean to woo her, the gesture should be personal. A thing you have clearly done for her. Perhaps it may benefit all her people, but the giving of it should show her that she is the true recipient. All others fall away beside her."
Zuko clenched his teeth and drew a long breath through his nose. "This isn't about wooing her. It's a simple comfort from home. I won't make some big production out of providing my guests with such a thing."
"When Daga opened the first package, she wept. Do not underestimate the power of such a comfort."
"I don't," Zuko snapped, "which is why I'm not about to use that power against her. It's a small matter and it'll stay that way."
Lord Gan peered back at him, squinting his eyes slightly, then smiled. "Your highness knows best. If you are ready to adjourn..?"
Surely she would be out of the hallway by now. Zuko allowed himself to be led to a cabin, which he quickly cleared of servants and sealed himself into. And, leaning his back against the shut door, finally freed his aching hard-on from his trousers to the rough treatment of his hand.
His urges had been nearly nonexistent since well before his return to the Fire Nation, and always polluted with emotional turmoil that had become inextricably bound to his most inspiring thoughts and memories. Now, there was no such obstacle. Zuko could think very comfortably of the previous night, of Katara pinned and spread out before him on that saddle, and while he knew she didn't want to want him, he also knew she wanted him.
Nothing was going to happen... but things that happened only in his mind posed no danger to his promise.
So, in Zuko's mind, he ripped the seam of her trousers and pressed her down against the saddle and let the eel-hound set the rhythm. He bore her to her hands and knees in the dirt and leafy darkness and extracted her involuntary reactions until she was a quaking, moaning mess. He hoisted her up against the side of one of his father's sabotaged airships and watched her face in the distant yellow lights as it twisted in passion he had never actually gotten to see before, and in his mind she was making the sweetest shocked, angry, ecstatic sounds and shoving back against him and glaring back at him with those fierce blue eyes and just-
-right.
Panting, with his head tipped back against the door and his eyes shut and his tension finally finally spent, Zuko felt right. He felt good. Relieved. Clean.
Well, clean in an emotional sense... His body was decidedly not. He stumblingly tidied up and washed before falling into the bed and into a deeper, more relaxed sleep than he had known in months.
Not since that other sailing ship. Those nights after Katara left him in the dark of the hold, when he sneaked back up to his hammock and settled in with a feeling of... a difficult to name sort of...
Peace.
.
.
Katara woke at her leisure and joined Lady Gan and Daga for a private late lunch. Daga turned out to be a middle-aged woman with laughing eyes and a fairly guilty conscience.
"It shames me to say it, but while my sisters have been suffering and struggling, I live with a nice couple who see to my every need and have been attempting to fatten me for winter for nearing a year now." She patted her thick waist, peering at Katara in wide-eyed alarm. "If I go back home like this, my husband won't be able to keep his hands off me!"
They shared an assortment of crispy dumplings with chili oil for dipping and sweet fruit juice on ice before retiring to a spacious dressing room - which seemed out of place even on such a lavish ship. There, they began going through what quickly became clear to Katara was a wardrobe so extravagant it put the ship itself to shame.
Back home, she had had six dresses and one parka and one sturdy pair of boots. The clothes she had worn as a slave had been numerous and fine by comparison.
Now, Lady Gan was dressing her up like a queen.
There were tunics and jackets and dresses and trousers and robes, over-garments and undergarments and layers meant to go between, in so many various cuts and colors and cloths and styles that Katara was swiftly dizzy. The seamstress and a maid helped her into under-layers light as mist, silk pants and cloth shoes that matched, and topped the ensemble with a stiff, knee-length silk coat the color of a warm sea, dappled in swirls of gold stitching so fine, the design winked in and out of view with the light. The seamstress wrapped it just so and tidily tucked the ends of the wide sash out of sight and, when Katara stepped from behind the screen, Lady Gan and Daga both let out little breaths of startled delight.
"Princess," Lady Gan said, rising to her feet and offering a proper bow. The baby was playing on a soft rug before the sofa and craned his little head back to gaze up at her when she stood. "Now you truly look the part."
Katara examined herself in the standing mirrors and saw an elegant stranger. Her hair and face remained the same, but the figure she cut in these clothes was so strange and new. Distinguished. Tasteful. Refined. A lady who could stroll through a palace or a Fire Court party with the confidence of knowing her finery was finer than much of that around her.
Or that's how it should have been. But it didn't look like her. It all just looked... off. She looked silly, out of place with her awkward middle-stage hair - a bumpkin playing dress-up, who was she going to fool? - and the slim steel collar was still locked around her throat - an ugly reminder of the status the Fire Nation had assigned her and all her people - but then Bogara's words slammed back into her head.
...a paragon, because you are exemplary of what the Southern Water Tribe has endured - and survived.
Her warrior's hair was growing out, but her wolftail was tidy and proud. She looked like what she was-
You are called to be a warrior, and wherever you go, that is where you will fight.
-like she'd stepped off one battlefield and onto another. A strange one, with a whole new style of combat that she didn't understand. All she'd been taught to do was look small and submissive and unassuming. And it struck Katara very suddenly as she looked back at her own frightened eyes that so many people were depending on her success, not just destroying airships in the night, but embodying the Water Tribes by the light of day.
And the Water Tribes really didn't need to be represented as scared-eyed bumpkins dressed up in obviously donated finery.
It was too much. Instead of thinking about all that, Katara sank into a bending stance and assessed the way the coat split to allow her legs free movement. The roomy cut of the trousers was generous - excessive with such an obviously expensive fabric - but it was also so unexpectedly practical, allowing for deep stances. The wide sleeves hugged her shoulders but did not hinder her. The shoes were soft and let her feet shift easily and quietly through the movements.
"Oh, gives me chills," Daga said excitedly. "You look like a legend in the making, Katara. I don't think there's ever been a Water Princess like you before."
"Do you like it?" Lady Gan asked, tipping her head to the side, assessing Katara's face. "Is there any adjustment that might make it more comfortable?"
"No - it's perfect." Straightening, Katara shot the beaming seamstress a smile.
"It is not perfect," Lady Gan said, light but persistent, "until you feel perfect in it. And you do not appear at ease. Perhaps-"
"How can I be at ease? This stuff isn't- I've never been-" Katara waved an irritable hand at herself, then let it fall hard against her hip. She glared at a corner of the ceiling, struggling to find words that were right and wouldn't make her look even more out of place.
Lady Gan raised one hand and the seamstress and servants filed out. Daga, beside her, shot Katara a reassuring look and then knelt down to play with Jung on his rug. Lady Gan approached Katara and the mirrors with even steps, not dissimilar to how one might approach a strange and upset animal. She looked past Katara at her reflection.
"They are not your clothes yet," Lady Gan said carefully. "But they could be, given time and familiarity. I suppose the true question is not one of adjustment but of intention. What do you intend for your life, Katara?"
Katara found herself meeting the eyes of the elegant woman beside her in the glass. "What do you mean?"
"You are fighting doggedly to see your people free and the war stopped. Well, all of that might be accomplished in the clothes you boarded this ship wearing. But once you have succeeded, once you've won every fight and emerged a hero, what do you want to do with your life after that?"
Katara hesitated. "I guess I haven't thought much past the war. I used to..."
Back when she had dreamed she might marry in a temple of ice, a gown of softest furs, all her family gathered around her. Back when there could have been a good husband to stand beside her.
"...but I don't really think about the future anymore," she finished tightly.
"Oh, but you must."
The urgency in Lady Gan's voice was strange and soft. Her eyes simmered with emotion.
"You have only just begun living, Katara. And the pathways before you are more numerous than you know. You might return to the South Pole and live a life of peace and simplicity, or you might travel the world as a companion to the Avatar. You might unite the Water Tribes under a benevolent reign. You might even, if you are especially determined or especially masochistic, spend some years in the Fire Nation ensuring the world's new peace is molded to a design you believe is right. Such possibilities, such choices are laid out before you like precious jewels."
Katara couldn't look away. She wasn't seeing the Fire Court noble now, but an older woman who truly believed what she was saying. A native to this land of extravagance, who knew how to read its signs and speak its language.
"Any of these paths, or all of them, are open to you," Lady Gan said, stepping behind her, still holding her gaze in the mirror. Light as a feather, with just the tips of her fingers, she pulled Katara's shoulders down and back and square. "The clothes fit your body, Katara. It is just that your ambitions must grow to fill them."
She touched a fingertip to the underside of Katara's chin and tipped her head up to a certain angle, drawing her neck long and straight.
"It's not a choice you need to make right now. This is the time to lay a wide foundation. Hone all of your many skills-" Lady Gan passed behind her and gently eased Katara's elbows a degree outward to cut a slightly different figure, to take up more space. "-because at some point, the last battle will be fought and the new era of peace shall arise. That, I imagine, is bound to be the hardest time for warriors such as yourself. Because your heart might long to return to a peaceful life, but perhaps it does not - and when the fight turns inevitably from battlefields to boardrooms, all the bending skill in the world will not win your people their due. Perhaps you intend to hand that fight off to another better prepared for civil combat," she shrugged and stepped away, "or perhaps you mean to embody the spirit of your element and adapt to the changing demands being made on you."
Katara looked away from Lady Gan and found herself subtly transformed. She no longer looked like a bumpkin in a costume. Her face remained expressive, her hair out of place, but she looked more like the sort of woman these clothes were made for.
"Just something to consider," Lady Gan said, and then summoned the servants back in.
Katara mulled this over while Lady Gan talked her through a few more ensembles and grand outer layers, subtly correcting her posture as she explained the particular situations each garment was intended for and the sort of statement a woman might make by including such and such a color at such and such event or even time of day. Katara absorbed as much as she could - but there was entirely too much information to keep straight.
"Your maid will handle details of that sort-" There was a tap at one of the windows and Lady Gan swept over to take a tiny scroll off a particularly small and handsome falcon. She took the missive, fed the creature some treat from a canister nearby, and shut the window as it took off, then read the contents of the scroll with a somewhat bored expression. At last, she tucked the missive into her sash and turned back to Katara as if the interlude had not happened at all. "Simply inform your maid of the impression you wish to garner and she will see to it your ensemble conveys as much..."
The seamstress made a few notes and marks on some garments - though shockingly few. She had evidently gotten Katara's measurements through Sian somehow, which was both convenient and weird. Then, at last, the fitting was over and it was time for dinner.
It turned out to be a pleasant affair. A meal of numerous small dishes - spicy or sweet or sour - from which Katara picked and chose and found herself eating her fill with surprising ease. She decided early on that it was because of Daga, who was seated on her right and engaged her in steady friendly conversation, speaking in undertones while the Fire Nobles carried on their own more formal discourse regarding the whirling names of shared acquaintances. But it didn't entirely escape her notice that Zuko seemed more relaxed than usual on her other side. His voice held only a fraction of the tension he usually exhibited at meals or formal tea meetings.
Perhaps because the allegiances around this table were certain in a way dealings with Fire Nobles rarely were. They were all committed together in their pact of treason and there was no turning back for any of them.
Or perhaps, Katara thought fleetingly, Zuko was more relaxed because he had had his own hot soak before retiring this morning. The image flashed through her head - his wide chest glistening through the steam off the water, his head laid back against the rim of the tub as he bit his lip, his large hands moving rhythmically beneath the surface. It flushed through her like boiling tea and left her face suddenly hot as she choked on a bite of pickled vegetables.
Once she - and everyone else around the table - was reassured Katara wasn't about to expire from coughing, Daga asked for any more news about the other healers. Her face was bright with relief and recognition as Katara gave her as many names as she could remember.
"Oh! That's so good to hear. Tenna was separated from her girls before they even got us on the ships. She must be ecstatic to be back with them now. And of course she would get someone on the household staff to help her figure out where they were being held. You'd have to be entirely heartless not to help a mother so desperate to find her kids-"
Daga lowered her voice and Katara leaned in a little closer. Lord Gan was going on at length about some upcoming function or festival or celebration while Zuko listened patiently.
"-and I'm sure you'll agree with me if I say the problem with the Fire Nation isn't a lack of people with hearts. I think maybe it's more a strange cultural disconnect from them, as if compassion is a sign of weakness. Yaza is always telling me Koji has to fight harder for respect because his compassionate nature diminishes him in the eyes of other nobles."
"The Fire Court is so weird," Katara whispered back. Lady Gan was reading her lips from across the table, but Katara just arched her eyebrows at her and kept going. "It's like being the biggest jerk is a competitive sport here or something."
"Your highness could become quite the contender," Lady Gan smirked as she raised her water glass.
"Ohh ho, she got you," Daga said with a cheery laugh, patting Katara's forearm.
"Pardon, contending for what?" Zuko asked from the end of the table at Katara's left.
"Oh," Katara said, pressing one hand to her chest and peering from Zuko to Lady Gan with wide, guileless eyes. "Lady Gan was just telling me how skilled I am at being mean."
"Her highness is too modest. Her wit is a flashing blade that cuts and dazzles with the same stroke," Lady Gan said with a benevolent smile... which she slid easily to Zuko. "Do you not think, your highness?"
"Uh," Zuko said stiltedly, sitting very straight and glancing at Katara as if searching for guidance. Or watching for warnings. "I guess..."
Katara, annoyed with Lady Gan's satisfied smile, turned a dry side-eye on him. Because maybe he was trying to help, but he so wasn't. But Lady Gan went on before she could speak.
"Equipped with such a sharp mind and bold heart, and adorned in raiment proper for her station, don't you imagine she could command the respect of the Fire Court itself?"
"Of course," Zuko said a little absently. He was meeting Katara's eye, reading the annoyance in her arched eyebrow and narrowed eyes that for some unfathomable reason seemed to confuse him.
"Since the topic has come up so naturally," Lady Gan went on with unveiled delight, "I remarked earlier that this particular shade of blue brings out the pink in her highness's cheeks. What do you think, Prince Zuko? Does she not positively glow?"
Katara felt her face heating and turned her frown back on that scheming fox-partridge. "I'm sure Prince Zuko has more important things to think about than what colors suit me and would thank you to keep your observations to yourself, Lady Gan," she said, primly looking down her nose.
"I can imagine little a young man might deem more important than the harmonious visual delights of beholding the beautiful woman seated at his side. Especially when she has the audacity-" She said the word with twinkling eyes. "-to speak for him while herself remaining so perpetually intractable."
"Oh-!" Katara said, her mouth springing open with genuine outrage that quickly brewed up to speechless embarrassment. Her face burned.
"Princess Katara is free to say whatever she likes," Zuko cut in firmly. His uncertainty from before had vanished and, when Katara stole a sideways look at him, he was watching Lady Gan steadily. "And she's right. I have no interest in discussing how good she looks in her new wardrobe at present. She'll command new respect. That's what matters."
It was both a clear statement of his priorities and an end to the teasing, but it was also the slightest blunder into Lady Gan's game - because at the heart of it he had admitted that he thought she looked good.
But as Lady Gan murmured her contrition, Zuko's unflinching eye turned back to Katara, and she felt an uncomfortable swoop in her chest and belly as she wondered if it had been a blunder at all. Maybe he'd meant it just like he said it.
Her face was no longer burning, but she had the uncomfortable certainty that her cheeks were still pink as she dropped her eyes back to her tea. She huffed for effect.
Daga nudged her with her elbow and, when she glanced over, she found the older woman's eyes bright and mischievous. "What a gentleman," she mouthed.
Across the table, Lady Gan's contrite veneer did not crack, but her eyes shone smug as a cat's. Katara's huff was very real this time.
At length, Daga excused herself and the servants were sent away and the discussion turned to more concrete matters.
"Koji dear, it seems Princess Azula has burned your villa."
Katara's stomach dropped out and she nearly choked again, but Lord Gan only sighed.
"Shiro will be devastated. He took such pride in that old house."
"You shall simply have to build him a new one once all this has settled down. Perhaps assign him the task. Who better than a majordomo to plan such an undertaking?"
"Quite so," Lord Gan said and then, seeming to recognize Katara's expression, offered her a reassuring smile. "All to plan, of course, your highness. There is no cause for alarm."
"It was not entirely expected that the villa would be razed to the ground," Lady Gan clarified blandly, "but that was always a possibility. All the better for our cause, in the end."
"How," Katara croaked, "could this possibly be good?"
"Because the Fire Court just got reminded what happens when Azula doesn't get her way," Zuko said, hard and unsurprised. "Everyone got out safely. Right?"
Lord Gan inclined his head immediately. "We had a note yesterday evening from Prince Zuko's majordomo indicating the move was a success."
Katara found Zuko's eyes back on her, a little too proud. "I told you Machi was handling it," he said.
Katara scoffed, then fixed him with an overly sweet smile. "She does take such good care of you."
Zuko's face shifted from faintly haughty pride to confusion, then annoyance as he heard the unspoken part - as any good wife would - and realized she was poking fun at him again. He huffed and turned his attention back to Lady Gan.
"Was it public?"
"My knowledge as of yet is quite limited, but it seems she attempted to conceal her involvement," Lady Gan laid a hand over her sash and Katara remembered her tucking away that tiny scroll just hours ago.
She also remembered the bored expression on the noble's face as she read about her burned-down home. As she reflected on it, Katara supposed that if she had four or more grand homes spread around the countryside, losing one to political games wouldn't seem like such a big deal. But still, she wished Daga was still sitting beside her so she could share a meaningful look with her. The way rich people viewed the world was positively bizarre.
"I received no word of Princess Azula being sighted approaching or leaving the villa," Lady Gan went on, "only that whispers have emerged from royal guards who witnessed this particularly unsettling incident. Such attempts at secrecy can only fan the flames of rumor. I have no doubt the truth will be widely known by your return to Caldera. But your absence from the public eye will not go unnoticed at such a time either," she said, tipping her head thoughtfully to one side. "Alongside the truth, there will doubtless be rumors that you were apprehended in secret and made to disappear. Such a clandestine solution to your open insubordination would not reflect well on the Fire Lord, but it would still be best if you put such concerns to rest as soon as possible. Tomorrow, if it can be managed."
"Right," Zuko sighed. "I'll arrange a palanquin ride after we get back to Harbor City."
"Ugh." Katara couldn't restrain herself from rolling her eyes. They were going to stay up all night destroying airships only to then endure a boring, hot, uncomfortable ride around the city? This struggle for public perception was exhausting.
Zuko's eyes cut over to her, but his look was more annoyed than sharp. "You don't have to go."
"Good. Because I'm not going."
Zuko rolled his eyes back to Lord and Lady Gan. "Any other recommendations?"
"Nothing we haven't already discussed," Lady Gan said as she shared a knowing smile with her husband. "I suppose the time has come for your highnesses to prepare yourselves for your evening exploits."
Katara narrowed her eyes at that wording but Lord Gan picked up without missing a beat. "The captain informs me that we shall pass your point of departure in the hour after sunset. Best to be ready."
After that, they all parted ways and Katara found herself changing back into her freshly-laundered dark clothing. The finery was whisked away by a maid with promises that it would join her shortly at the Piang villa. But as she donned her trousers and boots and tunic, Katara felt herself departing a strange interlude and returning to something more real - or at least more familiar. The many prongs of the future Lady Gan had laid before her did not have to be decided tonight. Diplomacy was a language Katara could learn later. If she really had to. Tonight, Katara would treat with the Fire Nation with all the simple rage and destruction her heart had long called for.
.
.
Ursa managed to convince the soldiers she was a wandering madwoman for about ten hours.
They unpacked her bag and the contents seemed to corroborate the impression. What sane person travels around the isolated reaches of the Fire Nation with a pack full of strange plants and decade-outdated portraits of the royal heirs? She didn't look like any kind of conniving insurrectionist. She looked like a loyal citizen worn ragged by travel and sorrow. The long lines across her face and knots in her hair were not uncommon features in the Fire Nation at present.
The name of the former Fire Lady certainly did not come up.
For the first hours after dawn, she cried very real tears of anxiety and exhaustion and pleaded that she had just gotten turned around in the night and thought there was a village in the caldera. She hadn't even made it to the base - hadn't been able to get through the woods. She left her bag behind when she became too tired to carry it. She was looking for her lost son who had been sent overseas. The guards gave her pitying looks, but did not send her on her way as she'd hoped. Instead, they shut her in a cell and Ursa could do nothing but worry in the stillness of the installation's tiny brig.
She could not let on what she knew - or suspected. Zuko's involvement here was obviously a secret, and whatever he and Princess Katara had been destroying was best left undiscovered as long as possible. The hours stretched out longer and longer, and Ursa found herself filled with ever-increasing gratitude for the time Zuko was winning but also dread for the inevitable discovery.
It was apparently late in the afternoon when a higher-up finally deemed it prudent to order an inspection of... whatever it was this facility was built to protect. After that, the stillness of the brig came to an excruciating end.
"Where is your team?"
"How many are there? Who's in command?"
"How could one little spy manage to crush an engine made of solid steel - much less fifty of the blasted things - and not make so much as a sound?"
"Are you a bender? Tell me now and it'll stop. Are you a bender?"
As quickly as pain stepped into the room, Ursa stepped out. Her mind pulled back and locked down like honeycomb under the buzz of a thousand bees. It was a cruelly familiar sensation. It was a simple habit, an agonizing curse that had grown in her long ago, when she had often needed to be insulated from what was happening beyond her control. So for several long hours after that, Ursa heard little and thought even less.
She felt everything, of course, but pain crashed through and through her like a river. She knew better than to believe there was any way to stop it.
But these guards, it seemed, got no satisfaction from hurting a dull-eyed and wordless woman. They went back to questions.
"No scorch marks, so you're not a firebender. No sign of rubble, no banging or noise. Not an earthbender, then."
"One of the engineers says it looks like the pipe froze and split. Waterbender."
It must have occurred to someone that she might be waiting for moonrise to make a break for it, because Ursa shortly found herself locked alone in the cell, bound in chains so heavy they made it hard to sit up from the cot. A guard watched her through a little sliding panel in a steel door.
But Ursa only laid there, curled on her side and staring at the flat stone wall. She held her aching hands and wrists to her chest and fought to think. She had to think. She had to come up with a plan, because there was no way they would let her go now. She was the only suspect and the only possible witness to whatever had happened. Eventually the higher-ups would reach out to the higher higher-ups and she would be squeezed for information until even the dumb protective layer around her mind finally broke and something came out.
She would never give away Zuko. She would die first. But eventually Ozai himself would lay eyes on her. And he would know.
It was not the first time Ursa cursed the terror-choked silence of her mind, but it was perhaps the most desperate. She made fists against her chest that lanced with pain and fought desperately to think. She had to think!
.
.
It was weird mounting up on the eel-hound behind Katara while Lord and Lady Gan stood on the deck smiling and waving good-bye, but Zuko did his best to grimly fix his eyes on the dark landmass on the horizon over her head, grip her hips at a safe distance, and not think about it. She smelled of different soaps and oils than she usually did and that was especially distracting, but it was still easier tonight to hold his thoughts apart from the warmth of her body.
They rode through the chilly breakers and then up on the rocky shore, exchanging no words except the few he needed to direct her toward the first airfield. There, they did not speak at all. It was easy now. Katara could telegraph her plan with a few glances and a nod of her chin and Zuko would dart off to watch guards, or to create rustles in the undergrowth for them to investigate. She seemed quicker, stronger. Perhaps it was the solid rest in a good bed instead of a hammock.
But more likely, it was the moon. He was probably imagining it, but she seemed to move differently in that white light, a viper-quick shadow pouring through her stances. The sky was clear tonight but last night's rain lingered in puddles and humid air. Her work was brutal and exacting. She was magnificent.
When they returned to the eel-hound and he climbed up behind her for the ride to the final airfield, Zuko couldn't help but breathe deeply a short distance behind her neck. The scents of unfamiliar soaps and oils had faded and now she just smelled like herself, well-worked and warm under his hands. He wanted, more than anything, to open his mouth against the side of her neck and taste her satisfaction at a job thoroughly done.
But they weren't done. Not yet.
They arrived at the final airfield and Zuko was immediately confronted with the difference from the one they had just left. There were more guards here - dozens more. Their patrols were frequent, leaving very little time when any individual airship was unobserved. Their voices raised in regular checks ensuring that all was well. This was a facility on high alert.
Katara seemed to sense the difference too. At her shoulder, Zuko whispered, "They're expecting us. One of the other airfields must have been discovered."
"The one we just left wasn't this bad."
"Maybe it's because we're a lot closer to Caldera now. Central command could enact this kind of security in just a couple hours here."
But she was right. It was weird that this base was on alert and the last was not.
They watched in silence as tight squadrons passed in two patrols going in opposite directions. Katara let out a breath that Zuko felt more than heard.
"I may not be able to pierce the balloons, but I can still do the internal damage. I just have to be more careful getting from one ship to the next."
"And not making too much noise. There's no rain sound to cover it tonight."
"The bugs are pretty loud," she shrugged. It was true enough. Cicadas and crickets and ash hoppers chorused in the woods, seemingly extra noisy to make up for the previous night's rain delay. At length, Katara shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We can't give up now. This is the last big cluster of airships. Even if we're seen, I don't want to stop until they're all grounded."
In the gloom of the bushes, Zuko met her meaningful stare. Chips of moonlight fell on her face like diamonds. Like that night in the valley. He would, he realized with dazzling, terrible certainty, do anything for her. Still. Always. Now especially.
"We won't stop," Zuko promised. "Keep it quiet as long as you can. After that, I'll buy you time."
She nodded and slipped away like a whisper. At a distance, Zuko followed.
She was careful, watchful and quick, and in seconds she had vanished into the nearest airship. The insects were loud, but Zuko still heard the muffled pops of bursting pipes, the high cries of steel twisting and crumpling. At length, she finished and crept like a shadow to the next ship. Zuko distracted one squadron and then another and another with rustles in the bushes, just loud enough to investigate and not quite loud enough to raise further suspicion.
But these soldiers weren't stupid. They noticed unusual rustling in the bushes and at some point, they must have reported it at a check-in. A specialized crew with lanterns began combing the woods. Zuko scrambled up into the branches of a tree and watched them pick their way by below. He had positioned himself so that he could watch them and keep an eye on the airship Katara was presently working inside. For a while, it all worked. He avoided the search crew and still managed to distract the patrols. Katara crept from ship to ship, slowly destroying them all.
It was just bad luck that she happened to bust a pipe at the very moment the crew had paused below Zuko to discuss giving up the hunt and returning to base. He watched in horror as all their heads turned in unison toward the airship.
Before he could think, he leapt.
He dropped boots-first onto the lieutenant in charge of the crew and rolled to absorb the momentum, then drew his swords as he came easily to his feet. The soldiers around him were no longer looking at the airship. They were gaping at his half-hidden face with wide, terrified eyes. Zuko sprang in their moment of surprise and slashed two of their lanterns in half. Fire blossomed too-bright in the air with a hungry fwoom! and burning oil splattered the brush surrounding them. He was able to knock out two more soldiers before one of them thought to raise a horn and sound the alarm.
After that, it was a chase.
.
.
Katara didn't see the fire - which guttered out quickly in the damp foliage - but she heard the clarion call of the horn. She watched from the shadows of the airship she had just finished with as a half dozen squadrons peeled off their patrols and hastened off into the woods in that direction. More horns sounded. Great torches flared up around the perimeter of the airfield.
But the threat was already in the airfield.
For a few long moments, Katara remained hidden in the shadows, watching yellow lantern lights bob in the woods. This was what they had agreed to do. Zuko would distract them. Zuko would buy her time, and Katara would finish her work. It had seemed very simple when they talked about it, a risk well worth taking.
But each squadron was at least six soldiers, and she presently found herself doing that math. How many soldiers, multiplied by how many squadrons... equals all the people chasing Zuko right now...
He'd be fine. He was quick and the woods were dense, he'd surely be able to disappear out from under their noses. The only reason they'd seen him to start with was because he wanted them to. He was drawing them off. It was part of the plan. Thousands of lives hung in the balance. Katara had to do her part.
And, she huffed and shook her head, she certainly wasn't going to run off and rescue him when they had a plan.
She peered around carefully and then scurried to the next airship.
.
.
Zuko had this situation totally under control - until he very suddenly didn't.
He led the soldiers back and forth through the forest, popping out of shadows and knocking out the less wary. He hid in the trees and listened for the urgency to die down and then dropped down on them repeatedly. He shattered a great many lanterns, but never cut any of the soldiers. They were protecting something incredibly destructive, but they were still his people. He didn't actually want to see them hurt. One man caught a chestful of burning oil but a firebender in his crew extinguished the flames before taking several shots at Zuko - who swiftly disappeared back into the darkness.
This went on for a long while. Hours maybe. Zuko could not have guessed an exact duration. He knew only that he was beginning to get tired. He hid out more and rested as the search went on, but it occurred to him that he couldn't let the soldiers rest much either, or they would figure out they were just being baited. So he pressed and harried and disappeared only to come at a different squadron from a new angle.
Everything was going fine until some smart guy took off his helmet and threw it at the back of Zuko's head. It was easy to evade firebending because the blasts were a dead giveaway. A steel helmet, on the other hand, made only the faintest rattle as it left the hand of the soldier throwing it. Zuko only had time to turn his head slightly and see the dark shape coming up quick to meet him before it clocked him above and behind one ear. Then he dropped to the shadows of the forest floor bonelessly and for a long while after that couldn't see or hear anything very clearly at all.
He didn't hear the soldier cry, "Gotcha!" in triumph, and he didn't hear the rustles of soldiers closing in on him where he lay crumpled amongst the roots of the forest floor.
He didn't hear the call of a strange bird that did not belong on this continent.
He didn't hear the scuffles and cries of men being taken down and bound and knocked out, or the soft scuffs of hide boots, or the undertones of hard voices hissing back and forth.
Zuko did pinch his eyes shut against the light when a man took up a lantern and held it nearby, but he didn't resist when the cloth was jerked down past his chin, exposing his face. He wasn't aware of the sudden stillness of the men now surrounding him, or the approaching sounds of horns and soldiers' voices. Even the hissed argument slipped past him like rain off a waterbender's face. All Zuko heard with any clarity was the vaguely familiar voice of the man who hoisted him upright in the second before he blacked out fully.
"-get some answers. Then the hornets' nest can have him-"
He slowly became aware of being carried some time after that - one man had his arms wrapped under Zuko's armpits and across his chest and someone else had a grip on his ankles. For a long while, that was all there was. The dark of the woods, the darts of moonlight, the thunder inside his skull, and the pinch of being carried.
Then there was a sound of a door, and Zuko found himself arranged in a chair and tied to it tight. Wrists behind him, then ankles and chest. He was starting to regain his senses now, heard the spark rocks and the whuff of a lamp being lit. He heard voices that echoed wetly off the walls of his mind, far away things that tugged at memory but did not quite connect clearly to the past. He felt the pounding in his head coming especially sharp from the spot where the helmet had struck him, but also very suddenly now from the pull of his hair as a fist clenched against his scalp and dragged his head up.
For a fraction of a second, he couldn't put a name to the face that loomed over him, twisted with malice, but he felt very keenly the dread and betrayed fury the sight of that face inspired in him.
"Wake up," Chief Hakoda snarled. "Where is my daughter?"
.
.
Katara worked hurriedly for what felt like hours. She heard the distant horns, spied the movements of soldiers with their lanterns and clanking armor, heard their slowly diminishing alarm. She watched closely for a while but never saw any prisoners among the returning squadrons. Zuko must have given them the slip.
She got back to work and did not notice that fewer squadrons returned than had gone out. She was inside an airship when a different horn sounded - a call she could not have known signaled a return to base - and did not see more squadrons disappear into the woods less than an hour after that.
She especially did not see that none of those squadrons came back at all this time. Not even when the horns sounded to summon them again. And again.
Katara did notice that the patrols had become few and far between, and that the lantern lights shimmied slightly in shaking hands, but that only struck her as good news. She was focused on her task and she was succeeding. Their mission was almost complete - the people of the Earth Kingdom would be spared.
It was only when Katara emerged from an airship and saw no firelight at all around the airfield - every lantern and every great torch had been snuffed out - that the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise. In the absence of any warm yellow glows, moonlight poured in a cold and uninterrupted flood over the still expanse, seeming to radiate out of the fog now welling up among the husks of ruined airships.
Nothing moved. Even the bugs, Katara realized, had gone silent.
"Well hello," creaked an aged, dry voice.
"Gah!" Katara squeaked, spinning around in a bending stance to aim the stream of water she had snatched from the air at- at-
Out of the deeper shadows under the airship emerged an old woman with long white hair and large, pale eyes. She was smiling in surprise and delight. Katara immediately felt very silly and dropped her stance. Her water pattered to the grass.
"Oh! Ah ha ha, hello! You're not - uh - a soldier... I didn't mean to bend at you, um- Sorry..."
"Don't ever be sorry," the old woman said, and to Katara's jaw-dropping astonishment, she swept her hands around her and pulled vapor from the air as well. "A lone waterbender can never be too careful in this land of savages."
Perhaps it was the shock and delight of meeting another waterbender - here and now of all times - but Katara forgot for a moment the unease she had been feeling. She forgot the vanished lights and the silenced guards. She forgot Zuko, presumably still doing his part in the woods somewhere. She even overlooked the disconcerting feeling the old woman's cold words gave her.
"You're a waterbender!" she said, her heart swelling with sudden wonder. "Me too! I mean, obviously. You probably saw... My name's Katara."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Katara." Her wizened face creased deeper still as she smiled. "You can call me Hama."