The bartender from last night must have liked her. When she tells him they're leaving, he slides her a small flask of what looks like liquor across the table and winks. She picks it up, uncapping it before taking a whiff. Firewhiskey.
"Hope you didn't mess up any windows," he teases. He's happy - customers from last night must have tipped. She knows they certainly drank well.
Katara flashes him a grin. "Oh, you can't even imagine what we did to that window."
Just like yesterday, he barks out a laugh. The firebender behind her stiffens, crossing his arms over his chest.
She tucks the flask into her backpack. She's never tried firewhiskey - she was always fine with the ales and the beers of the Tribes - but it might be nice when she gets back on the ship. She'll save it for a little celebration party.
The waterbender leads the way out. Zuko keeps close though, and she notices that he's walking with his head tilted to the side again. She furrows her brow. Is he trying to hide his scar? Didn't he notice how that did not work yesterday?
Katara slows, lets him slide up beside her. "When you try to hide you just bring further attention to yourself. Just walk - not like you own the world or anything - but like you just don't care."
She realizes that sounds like advice. So with a sneer, she adds, "Didn't they teach you anything in that damned castle?"
He scowls. There. Now she feels a bit better.
She's aware that Zuko walks with his head up when they make it to the streets outside of the inn.
Katara leads them the way they came yesterday. This trip might have taken them off course but it did help. Not only did they have supplies - soap, thank Spirits - but Zuko finally understands that the roles are reversed here.
There are no more questions.
He has also proven to her that he isn't giving up either. He is just as eager to get her to the Fire Nation as she is to get him to the Water Tribes.
The bloodbending will set him back though. He flinches when she moves her hands. For some reason, the smirk isn't as big as the one she had last night when he did the same.
Neither one of them lead the way through the miles of forest back to the river. They walk side-by-side. Katara would lead - she'd rather lead - but she doesn't trust the firebender to stay behind her. Even if she can feel his heartbeat.
She assumes Zuko feels the same. He stays close enough and he glances over at her out of the corners of his eyes when he thinks she's not paying attention.
She wonders if he's aware that she does the same every few feet.
They rest for a brief moment when it's noon. Katara nibbles at some jerky and Zuko eats fruit in silence. The waterbender has never found trees so interesting before. She signals that they're about to leave by standing, slinging the backpack on and walking away from where they sat.
Katara thinks they more than made up for yesterday's detour when they finally make a camp. Her legs are jelly and the firebender winces as he collapses on the ground. She doesn't even bother to smirk at that though, because she knows that the grimace on her face is more than enough to match his as she slides on top of the bedroll.
She eats a mango while her eyes start to close. Zuko is staring up at the sky when she risks a glance at him. They don't even start a fire. They're just so...exhausted.
The firebender watches her warily as she forces herself up to climb a tree. She notices with some amusement that after a few moments, he starts to do the same. There's a good bit of distance between them but she can still make out his shape in the dark because of the moon.
Katara straps herself down on the tree, muscles aching and legs slack and she isn't as high as she'd like but this will have to do.
She forces herself to stay awake until Zuko's heart starts to slow into a dull, sleeping rhythm.
Katara dreams of more red. Except this time, the blood that she feels in her hands is cold and sticky.
She wakes up feeling horrified.
-/-
"What you did to me night before last," his voice makes her jump. She almost walks right into a tree. "I… I've never seen - or heard - of anyone doing it before." The glance he gives her is wary. As if she's going to demonstrate the technique again.
They managed to start out just as dawn broke. Zuko and she had both been silent as they packed up their things and started walking. They didn't even speak at lunch. His shoulders were still tense, eyes still flickering over to watch hers when he thought she wasn't looking at him.
So she's surprised when it's him that starts the conversation. Even if it is something that she isn't sure she'd like to talk about with him.
She shrugs her shoulders like it's no big deal. "Doesn't surprise me. I don't know many who can do it."
Adding that only she and one other waterbender knows how to bloodbend doesn't seem smart right now. So she holds that part back.
A beat. His throat moves when he gulps. "Have you used it before?"
Katara turns her head to look at him. When he realizes that she's staring at him, he meets her eyes. Curiosity, some fear… hesitation and intrigue. Interesting.
"I have," she says honestly. Anger flashes in his eyes. "But I wasn't able to on the ship." She can't help it - something about that anger and hostility makes her want to clear that part up.
Why she's trying to soothe him, she doesn't know.
The anger leaves his eyes completely and he almost looks relieved. Wondering why he even asked, Katara asks, "Why?"
"Ji." He replies without hesitation. "I didn't know."
Red. Katara blinks. "No. I, uh, didn't bloodbend Ji." She just used his blood to suffocate the other guard. That - just like the information about how many bloodbenders there are - is definitely not something she's going to tell him.
"Why not?"
"I wasn't strong enough then. I was still weak bending wise." Katara puts her hand on a tree to steady herself when she walks over a large and slipper log. "It's...complicated."
"It's not right." Zuko is tensing up again. "Taking over someone's body. It's just -"
"So is burning someone to the point where they could be served for dinner," she interrupts. "Don't try to give me a morality lesson. You firebenders are no better."
"So you admit that bloodbending is wrong?"
Now she's the one who pauses. "It's a gift just like any other kind of bending. If we're going by that, shouldn't all bending be wrong?"
"But you're taking over someone's body. You're...inside them. There's no free will, no control."
"I think it's the same as torturing someone with bending to get them to talk." She gives him a pointed glare. "How is what I do any different?"
The firebender clenches his jaw. "It just is."
"No. It's not."
Two miles later and the silence is thick again. Except this time, there's some added tension.
She tries not to feel angry. Really, she does. And after they walk a while, that anger ebbs away into simple annoyance. She's had problems understanding bloodbending herself with all of the Northerners' disapproval. She certainly doesn't need the firebender's, too.
Is it really so different? Bloodbending - it's like normal bending. Just...more personal? She is far more aware of those around her because of it - and sometimes it drives her crazy - but really it's the same as her waterbending.
Right?
Hama believed that easily. Then again, she had a reason to believe in it. It helped her defeat Fire Nation Raiders when they began their aggressive campaigns to conquer the Southern Tribes. Katara had gotten out of a few sticky situations but it never came down to life-or-death.
No. Katara stops herself right there. It was always life or death when it came to the Fire Nation. Pakku, someone who didn't approve entirely of bloodbending, admitted that it had it's uses.
"It's monstrous, you know," Zuko interrupts her thoughts. She almost doesn't know what he's talking about. They've been walking in the quiet for nearly an hour.
Monstrous. She stiffens. Katara's heard it all before but hearing it from him is different.
How dare he. How dare he! This firebender - a man who held her prisoner, who had narrowly avoided pushing her out the window just the night before - has the audacity to call her a monster. It just -
"You don't know anything," she snarls, "so don't pretend that you do. I'm no more monstrous than you firebenders. Or are you really ignorant about what you precious soldiers do?"
He opens his mouth to reply but she's not having that.
"No, you know what? It's not even just that. What's monstrous isn't my bloodbending - monstrous is your raiders burning huts down with innocent children still inside. Monstrous is when you have to watch as defenseless nonbenders are boiled alive in front of their family just because they're not Fire Nation.
"Monstrous is dragging benders away and locking them in your floating prisons where they're never seen or heard from again. Monstrous is what your kind did to the Air Nomads. Your people have single-handedly obliterated one entire race, decimated another and are quickly working on making sure there are no earthbenders left. So don't talk to me about being monstrous because I do what it takes to survive in the world that your kind created. Don't you dare."
Her face is red. They've stopped. Blood crazy and hear pounding, it takes her a second to feel her finger bury itself in his chest.
He's looking at her. Face blank.
The waterbender sneers. "I can take my own kind calling me a monster. But you have no right. No damned right." She pushes her entire hand against his chest, forcing him away from her. "Call me that again and I'll show you how monstrous I can be."
"You think I'm ignorant of what my kind has done?" Zuko's eyes flash with anger and he's pushing on her chest now. "I'm very well aware. But are you aware of your own? You try to tell me that I don't know about what's going on but I think it's you who's blind."
Katara knocks his hands away and pushes him back. Anger chokes her. It has a grip on her throat and she can feel her blood freeze. Eyes cold, she wishes the full moon was back so she could make him kneel.
"You may know but you've never seen it. You've never felt it. I'd like to see you on the other side of what your so-called Fire Lord calls fair and just and natural. If we're going to talk about monstrous and unnatural things - let's talk about your sins even though you're so focused on mine."
He reddens. Fury. "You - You are an idiotic girl if you think that you're so innocent! The Fire Nation has their faults but don't act as if your resistance is any better!"
"Well then I'll be sure to tell them! I'm sure they'd be thrilled to hear what the Fire Nation Prince has to say about them!"
His hands flame. Katara starts to tug at the water in her waterskin. If he attacks, she'll be prepared.
"What about the attacks on the colonies? Your warriors don't even try to differentiate between Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. You just attack blindly!"
"People die in wars. It's the only thing you can count on! What about when the firebenders burned down the forest on Whale Tail Island? More than half of those people starved to death as punishment for not paying their taxes!"
"They weren't just not paying taxes - they were harboring Fire Nation enemies!"
"They were earthbenders who were so old they couldn't do anything! Is your kind really so weak and insecure that they have to round up benders of all age just to feel safe?"
"It doesn't matter how old they were. The benders were masters and the islanders broke the law. Without law, there can be no order." He swallows. "What about when your resistance slaughtered nearly ever firebender in Makapau? Men, women and children. All dead."
Katara sneers. "Enemy casualties are expected." She doesn't mention that she refused to speak to her father for weeks after hearing of the slaughter. Hakoda hadn't been the one who organized it but he sure hadn't tried to stop it.
"What about the earthbenders who died on the Northerner's raid of Lao Ping island?"
"What about the massacre of Full Moon Bay?"
"Jang Hui Island?"
"Huang Sha?"
"Just face it - the Fire Nation isn't innocent but neither is your resistance."
The waterbender who has a heated hand shoving into her chest growls. "Maybe so. But we haven't tried to wipe out entire nations of people."
"Enemy casualties are expected." He throws her words back in her face with a false smile.
Her palms itch. Her blood is heavy with ice.
"You're not even worth the reply." Katara lips curl up and she pivots away, stalking through the forest to get away from him before she does something that she'll regret later. Specifically, something involving freezing his entire body until he turns blue.
Strong fingers wrap around her arm and she's yanked back. "I'm the Prince of the Fire Nation."
Her fingers tug at the water in the skin and she slaps him across the face with a water-frozen hand. The blow is solid - enough to snap his head to the side but he doesn't let go. His hands flames - bright searing pain lacing through her frozen blood and she screams.
Zuko doesn't let go. If anything, he squeezes tighter. He's glaring at her now - one side of his face red from her cold slap and his lips twisted into a sneer.
Katara's blood pulses, racing to heal the arm that he's burning. She panics - she doesn't have enough time or energy to fight him off he keeps boiling her like that - and it hurts so much that if he doesn't -
- Zuko lets go. When he shoves her away from him, her back collides with a tree.
Before he can make another move, she launches a water whip into his chest. But the firebender blocks it with a fire whip and suddenly they're battling.
Ice discs, fire balls. Water whips and flaming punches.
She cuts through his high arcs and he punches through her water snaps. Zuko will try to burn her with multiple fire darts that she blocks with a wave of her hand. She careens ice icicles at his chest that he obliterates with a flaming thrust of his heel.
They're getting nowhere.
But Katara is tiring. She's weak from healing her arm and from bloodbending the night before. Zuko is strong and the sun is his. Her moon is gone.
She rises with the moon, but he rises with the sun.
Katara manages to suck up more water from weeds around her but it's not enough to completely block all of Zuko's sweeping fire kick.
The heat of the fire forces her to shy away instinctively - fire burns - the shield ignored and dropping just in time to ignite the branches above her.
Panic - she can't stop it - and she tries to move the water back to her as quickly as possible to douse the flames -
- the firebender launches another flaming arc - smoke burns in the air and the tree is crackling over her head but she has to block Zuko's attack or she will die. Her focus and energy is divided and she doesn't have enough water to -
The branch snaps. Katara's eyes fly open as she lunges forward, rolls on the ground and her stomach and forehead crash against a stout tree trunk. All of her breath is pushed out of her at once and she starts to feel a little dizzy.
But there's no more fire.
The branch lands right where she had stood not two seconds ago.
Zuko seems to realize how close he had been to killing her - burning her and crushing her underneath ignited branches - because he doesn't try to attack her here where she's most vulnerable.
She can't say she'd do the same if the situations were reversed. And that makes her angry. The firebender - he hates her. He shouldn't let her just lie here so that she can catch her breath and attack him again.
Head aching, she rolls over onto her back. She stares up at the branches - not burning - above her. Her stomach pounds in time with her head, both keeping rhythm with her heart.
Why isn't he attacking her? She's dazed - stomach twisting - and she's tired. So tired. Bending after a full moon is normally...very unpleasant. She can feel blood slip down her face from her nose but she can't bother herself to lift a hand and wipe it away.
Katara waits, only vaguely aware of how steady his heart is beating in comparison to her own. Her's is anticipating an attack. His isn't preparing for one.
Why isn't he attacking her?
Hot hands grab at her arms again and he hauls her up. Legs, weak and unable to find purchase on the ground, swing aimlessly as her eyes slide close from vertigo. Zuko pushes her up against the tree - with more force than necessary - and she can't hide her hiss when her head hits the bark.
Her feet finally touch the ground but she can barely hold herself up. She's so dizzy and tired and her head hurts and her arms burn from where he's holding her body to the tree that she can barely stand.
The firebender grasps her wrists and turns them against the tree. He's making sure that she won't try to bend him.
He doesn't know that she couldn't bloodbend right now even if she tried. Not unless she wanted to pass out after a few short seconds.
"Don't ever try to place yourself above me, peasant."
"Funny how that offends you more than anything else." Katara tries to shift. Zuko presses against her harder. "Issues much? Concerns about your place in your little palace?"
His face reddens. She can't help but grin because she's just discovered one of Zuko's insecurities. How will she exploit that?
Katara doesn't try to move again. "I hear that you have a sister. A firebending prodigy, so I've been told. Scared that your dad might like her more than you?"
"Be careful, waterbender," he hisses. The hands wrapped around her wrist grow hot but she tries to ignore it.
She wants to break him. Anger him. Make him lose control.
It's not the smartest thing she's ever wanted to do. But she wants it - needs it to justify everything that she can and will do. The bloodbender in her has always reveled in a little bit of power struggle. And this conversation right here is nothing but that.
"I wonder why he sent you on this grand mission to capture the Avatar when she would probably be able to actually succeed where you've failed." Wait. "That's it, isn't it? He wants you to fail."
Zuko growls. Her wrists burn. But she can't heal herself - she's too weak - so she tries to block out the pain because she can feel him slipping. If she doesn't push him now, she might not be able to again.
So she laughs instead of cries from the pain. "I wonder why that is, Prince. I wonder why he wants you to fail just like Lu Ten did in Ba Sing Se. Think your fates will be the same?"
She's still laughing - a sadistic edge to it as the flames on her wrists burn bright orange - and Zuko finally breaks. She feels it in his heart before she feels it on her skin.
There's a heated flash of agony - heat searing up her entire body through her veins and the laugh chokes into a gasp before her eyes burn and her vision turns orange. Pain. Orange. Everything is burning.
Black slams away the orange. The heat recedes.
Her eyes are closed and she sags against the tree. The last thing she feels isn't pain - it's his warm fingers around her wrists.
-/-
Something is tugging at her body and that's what jolts her awake.
At first, she keeps her eyes closed. The black fades into grey, edging into paler territory before bursting into white. Then it fades back into darkness and there's a low throb in the back of her head.
Her wrists ache. Her mouth is dry. She's weak.
Slowly, she peels open her eyes and at first she wonders if she's gone blind because all she can see is more darkness. Then her sight starts to focus and adapts and she sees a bit of orange and yellow glow somewhere to her left.
It's nighttime. The moon's pull has woken her up.
There's a heartbeat over near the fire and she can feel the warmth on the bare skin of her arm. She shifts. The scratchy blanket underneath her doesn't feel good.
Katara turns her head to look at the fire. She knows Zuko had to lay her down on the blanket, otherwise how else would she have moved from the tree to here? But that doesn't explain why he would do something like that.
The firebender in question is sitting on the opposite side of the fire. He's staring at the flames - orange and red like his fire - and her movement makes those eyes flick to hers.
He tenses. Waiting for her backlash of fury at not only being pushed to the point of exhaustion, but also at having been touched by him.
But she doesn't feel angry. She just feels confused. He stares at her with tension in his shoulders for a few more moments before realizing that she isn't going to attack him and then he relaxes. A little.
The moon is in her veins and she probably could bend right now. Doing that, though, will set him off and she wants to know why. She needs him relaxed and vulnerable for that.
Katara sits up, palms against the blanket so that she can get some support underneath her shaking body. It takes her a few moments and when she's up she's out of breath.
She brings her hands back around into her lap and that's when she notices it. The shackles are gone. Replacing those are strips of black fabric wrapped around her wrists.
Her body tenses. He had tried to heal her?
"I almost killed you. Again." Zuko says. Her head snaps up from her wrists to look at him. He's staring at the fire again. His shoulders are heavy.
"I goaded you." Katara can't stop herself. He looks regretful - the shadows under his eyes are not from the fire. For some reason, she wants to tell this man that she hates that it wasn't his fault. Well, that it wasn't completely his fault.
"I'm not Zhao."
"I know you're not."
"But I keep trying to kill you." He rubs his hands through his hair. He still hasn't looked back up at her. "I keep trying to hurt you."
"I'm doing the same. Yet I don't feel guilty about it." Lie. "So why should you? We're enemies and in a war, firebender. It's expected."
That catches his attention.
"Never try to apologize to me." Katara moves so that she is sitting with the fire warming her chest instead of her side. It also helps her look at him. "Because I will never apologize to you."
Zuko's eyes go blank. That regret she had seen earlier is gone, replaced by something that is as cold as her ice darts. He stands and stalks away from her, disappearing into the forest.
Watching him go hurts her for some reason - he's right, all they've been trying to do is kill each other. But she's right in that's what they're supposed to be doing. Both of them have tried numerous times to establish that they are not in any way allies.
They are enemies. And she thought that their numerous battles and bickering would have solidified that. She believed that his hatred of her and her bloodbending would further prove that they are not - and never will be - friends in this.
Because they are at war. She hates his kind. She hates his fire. She hates his destruction. She hates his rage. His temper. His bloodline. She hates him.
It's just like how he hates her kind. He hates her water and ice, her destruction and her temper. How she goads him into boiling her until she slips into unconsciousness.
Hatred is the only thing that they should be feeling for each other. Yet, Katara can't help but feel that some part of her is softening and that worries her.
She's tried to appease his sense of guilt far too many times. That's not something she normally does to someone that she hates.
She brings her knees up to her chest and buries her fingers in her loosening hair. This - all of this - is too complicated. She should have left him on that ship.
None of it makes sense. And she doesn't know why.
Fire and water do not mix. Her moon will never be in the sky with his sun. Their kinds don't mix. They never will. Hatred will always be between them and that used to be the only ground she could stand on.
But now that ground is shifting. His kindness - him taking her to the pallet after he almost killed her, his insistence on carrying the backpack when he saw her sagging shoulders, his tenderness when he held her healing hand, his concern when she was drenched in Ji's blood - it's making things hazy.
Why. After the way she treated him last night and his harsh words through the day, it just doesn't add up.
She's swimming in lava and she can't keep going like this.
Because fire and water do not mix. They are not meant to be allies. They are opposite - water drowns fire and fire evaporates water.
So why are they being so kind?
Katara thinks back to just before he lost control. It's difficult because her mind just wants to focus on the sharp pains of her wrists burning, but she pushes past that to what she had said. What he had looked like as she said it.
Hurt. Anger. Betrayal. Zuko had let it all show before she slipped into blackness. He really was concerned about his place in the Palace. He did look at capturing the Avatar as his only way to secure his spot in the Royal line.
And then he had almost killed her. That explained some of his guilt. She was the only way he could actually even get close to who he wanted. If he killed her, all of that would be lost.
He wouldn't have a chance to prove himself.
If she dies - especially by his own hands - everything that he wants would be pulled out of his reach completely.
The Avatar is important to him not only because he was the Avatar, but also because Zuko sees it as the only way to not be like his cousin.
And she's what is between him and his throne.
She wonders what it is like. To be afraid of a father so much to go on a desperate manhunt to ensure that one isn't banished from home.
Her father would never do that. They have had their differences - bloodbending, attacks and raids to name a few - but she has always had a home.
The firebender… he doesn't have that. There is no security where he is. And that...isn't right.
A part of her feels for him. But that part is immediately overshadowed by the fact that he is fire and still her enemy. It doesn't matter what his intentions are, his backstory. No matter how sad it is, it's not her concern.
She must win. She has to win this. If not for the Avatar and the resistance, but for herself.
It's the only way that she can prove her ice is superior to his fire.
-/-
She's already fallen asleep by the time he gets back. The healing, the bloodbending and the frustration over her own internal monologue made her close her eyes and before she knew it, the moon offered her a reprieve.
She senses his heartbeat and she opens her eyes, watching him as he walks back into the light. He looks over at her - she snaps her eyes closed - and she hears him move around a bit. Katara peeks out from between her lashes. He's straightening out his pallet.
He rolls over onto his side. She stares at his back.
The firebender flips over, looking up at the trees that shade their little camp.
"You're right, you know." Zuko's voice makes her jump even though she was watching him. He turns his head to look at her through the weakening fire. This time, she doesn't close her eyes, she opens them further. "I don't want to end up like Lu Ten. But… right now, it looks like I might."
She doesn't say anything. She isn't sure what he wants her to say.
"Azula is father's favorite. She was born lucky." He turns his face away from her. She doesn't look away from him. "But she can not get the throne. That's why I have to get the Avatar. If I don't… this world will burn."
"It already is."
He looks up, meeting her eyes again and she's surprised at the determination in them. He's not hiding this time - he wants her to see it. For some reason, this is important. Somehow, Azula getting the throne makes him more scared than anything that she's seen before.
Maybe Azula is the one the rebellion needs to worry about. If they can get to her...
"You sure about that?"
"The world is dying. Haven't you noticed? Something isn't right here - and I think that something is the Fire Nation as a whole, not just one girl."
"I know," he nods. "I know the balance is off and everything is...is rebellion because..." This time, he swallows. "But if Azula wins this - if I were to disappear - it would not help you at all. It'll just make things worse."
Katara turns away. Zuko is worried about Azula - but at the same time, Katara wonders if the firebender is just toying with her somehow. It wouldn't be the first time.
So, she turns away from him, her back to the fire as she lays on the pallet. "That's where you're wrong. Things can't get any worse."