Chapter Text
Book Three: Fire
Chapter Sixteen: Attack on the Western Air Temple
Appa snores peacefully in the early morning light as Aang begins to stir, stretching his arms out wide as he embraces the new day. But, as he stands up and shakes off the last bit of sleepiness, he realizes something is off. His senses sharper and he hears something soaring through the air. He grabs his staff and quickly goes on the defense, and as soon as he sees the firebomb sailing towards him, he redirects it with his air bending and it explodes several yards from where his friends still sleep.
Everybody’s awake now.
“What that…” Sokka says, but before he can finish his questions, another bomb hits their hideout and the walls around them begin to shake. The columns crack and ceiling begins to crumble.
“Watch out!” Zuko screams as he sees stone shards being to fall. He lunges towards Katara, and together they slide several feet away from a massive stone that was pummeling directly towards them.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping rocks from crushing you.”
“Well, the only thing crushing me is you now, so you can get off.”
Zuko carefully pulls himself away from her, and she runs to rejoin the group.
“I guess I’ll take that as a thank you,” he mutters to himself as he follows Katara to the fight.
Aang has shuttered the windows safely, but the fire nation air ships outside continue to blast the building with bombs.
The building shakes terribly and the ground begins to slinter apart.
“Katara!” Aang screams as a growing chasm opens in the ground and begins to swallow her.
As Katara disappears in the dark hole, Zuko dives towards her. He catches his feet on the uneven ground around him and with the first half of his body thrown in the hole, he grabs Katara’s hand in the nick of time.
She stares up at him, eyes filled with fear. He nods at her with assurance, and begins to lift her out.
“Thanks,” she says sincerely. Zuko just bows his head slightly, acknowledging it.
The temple continues to shatter and shake as the outside assault continues. Walls tumble down and the break in the ground grows wider.
Toph has carved a hole in the wall in the back and is ushering people into it, but Katara and Zuko can’t see away across.
“Katara!” Aang screams again, “I’ll come get you.”
Another blast hits and several more stones crash down.
“No! Just get everyone to safety.” Katara looks around and see a staircase behind her. “We’ll find another way and meet you guys outside.”
Aang doesn’t like it, but they’re all about to but crushed by the building if they don’t move.
“Come on, Aang, there’s no time!” Sokka yells. Aang looks to his other friends, all trying to get Appa in the tunnel, and nods. “They’ll be okay, they can take care of themselves. Now tell this bison of yours to move his big butt.”
Appa growls in protest.
“Come on, Appa,” Aang says gently, “I know you don’t like tunnels, but we’ve got no other choice.”
Appa lets out a deep groan but begins moving forward. Aang takes one last look at Zuko and Katara, both running up a staircase of the far side of the room, and he leads Appa through Toph’s tunnel.
Zuko leads the way as he and Katara climb the stairs. The blasts seem to have stopped now, and he’s certain Fire Nation solider are now searching for them in the rubble.
“Watch your head,” he tells Katara as they turn a corner and a massive stone rafter lies before them.
“I can see that giant rock just as well as you,” she huffs.
“Okay, sorry, I was just…” He mutters, “trying to be helpful.”
“How is pointing out the obvious helpful?” She says as she pushes ahead of him.
“Good point.” He hangs his head and follows her.
Several of the hallways they try are too full of rubble and debris for them to pass, but finally they turn a corner and see a bright patch of light towards the end.
“If there’s that much light, there’s got to be a space we can crawl through!” Katara says and begins running towards it. Zuko smiles slightly and follows.
When they get to the end of the hall, they see a wide and open window, and there are a few roof rafters collapsed in front of it, but there is plenty of space for the pair to climb through.
Zuko easily hops up and surveys the surroundings from the ledge. There’s another story above them in the temple hanging from the underside of the massive mountain the Western Air Temples are situated under. The next ledge is too high up for him to reach or climb up to, but he can easily jump down to the ledge below him. Katara is climbing up next to him.
“I’m going to jump down and see how stable it is. If it seems secure, we can hopefully find a way back inside to a portion of the building that isn’t damaged.”
Katara throws her legs over the ledge like she’s about to follow him.
“What are you doing?” Zuko asks.
“You just said we should go look for a way into another part of the building.”
“I said I’m going to check how stable it is. What if the structure is too damaged to support me? Do you want us both tumbling to our deaths?”
Zuko says this so matter-of-factly, Katara is taken aback. Is Zuko really that willing to put himself in mortal danger?
“Just let me check it out first. And then you can follow.”
Katara is still processing his behavior as she watches him deftly jump down and explore the surrounding ledge. Zuko carefully explores the rooftop, occasionally jumping and testing its support. After turning around a few corners, he comes back to Katara and asks her to follow him.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to jump across to the other structure, but I found another window on the other side, and it looks like the passages there are undamaged. We should be able to take them to get back inside the main compound, and hopefully meet up with the others on the other side.”
Katara follows Zuko and they quickly make it through the passages of the inner air temple compound and find an exit to the mountainside above them. They figure that’s the best area to survey the Fire Nation’s position and hopefully find sight of their friends.
Zuko is the first to exit the structure, and when the coast looks clear, he waves Katara to join him. But as soon as they step out on the cliff ledge, several large Fire Nation air ships rise to meet them, and his sister Azula is standing at their helm, her yellow eyes narrowed on him like a hawk on its prey.
“Azula,” he huffs, “I should have—” but before he can finish, a set of earthen chains slam around him, binding his mouth, arms, and feet. He senses Katara be bound behind him too and hears her fall to the ground. A set of Dai Li agents from the earth kingdom walk up from behind Azula, and carry the captured pair onto the war ships.
When Katara comes to, she’s bound in a prison cell inside the air ship. As she looks around at her surroundings, she hears Zuko’s voice in the hallway amidst the heavy footfalls of guards and rattling chains.
“That’s everything I know about the Avatar.”
“Well, I suppose that’s not nothing,” Azula says, her voice crisp and cruel. “If it helps us actually capture the Avatar, maybe father will be generous when I turn you over to him.”
Katara’s eyes fill with rage and tears and she processes Zuko’s betrayal, yet again. She knew she never should have trusted him.
“I must admit I so enjoy father’s particular brand of punishment.” She laughs cruelly and Zuko says nothing as they lead him to the end of the hall. “I can’t wait to see what he has in store for you this time!”
Hours later, Katara is still writhing in her cell, trying to think of a way out of her chains and how she’ll get back at Zuko for betraying her again. She’s made little progress when someone finally comes to her cell, and Katara is surprised and angry when Zuko slips in her cell.
He quickly and quietly begins to loosen her binds, and when he pulls the gag from her mouth, she almost bites him.
“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you! How dare—” Zuko quickly stuffs the gag back down her throat, and she throws her feet into him, but he’s able to jump to the side, just missing her thrust.
Once Zuko realizes Katara thinks he’s an enemy again, he holds up his hands and sinks to his knees, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. But her eyes still boil over with rage.
“Katara, please, I’m still your friend…”
Her eyes lose none of their anger or sharpness, and muffled curses gargle from behind her gag.
Zuko lowers his eyes and stares at the ground, and realizes friend was too strong a world.
“Please, I’m still on your side and I need you to trust me. We only have a few minutes before the guards realized I’ve escaped, and we need to get out of her before they do.”
She stops struggling, but her look still cuts him.
“I’m going to loosen your binds now, and it’s really important you don’t scream.”
She nods but just barely.
Zuko softly removes the gag and begins untying her.
“How am I supposed to trust you and believe you didn’t turn on Aang?”
“Katara, please, I asked you to be quiet.”
“No, you told me not to scream. I’m not screaming.” Even though she is whispering, it still feels like she’s yelling. Once he’s completely freed her, she stares at him in the face.
“I didn’t turn on Aang,” his voice low, humble and his eyes are still downcast.
“Look me in the eye so I can see if you’re lying to me.”
Zuko slowly raises his eyes. Katara has a hard time looking into them, especially the scarred one, and even though she’s full of rage, she still pities him, on some level.
“Oh, I heard you passing in the hall, you told them everything.”
“And what did you hear me tell them?” His voice raises slightly, and even though he knows he shouldn’t, he’s beginning to lose patience.
Katara opens her mouth, but realizes she doesn’t actually know what he said to them.
“Look, Katara, I cooperated, I pretended to cooperate, so they wouldn’t interrogate you.”
Katara is still annoyed with, and mistrustful, by his duplicitous ways. “So? I would never have told them anything!”
“Yes, you would have.” He says with a grim and solemn face, “You don’t know what they can do.”
She wants to protest, but sees a severity in him, his eyes, and especially his scar. It occurs to her for the first time that she doesn’t know how he got it.
Not knowing how to respond, she changes the subject. “Fine. So how are we getting out of here?”
He smiles, just slightly, and peers out the cell. Once he knows the coast is clear, he motions for her to follow, and they slip quietly down the hall. They stop at one door, and he motions to her to wait. Zuko is all but silent, and he returns only moments later with a large pack and a bundle of their personal effects that the guards took from them. Without a word, Zuko motions for Katara to follow him again, until they stop at a hatch at the end of an empty hall.
“Alright, Katara, before we do this, I just need to ask…” He pauses awkwardly, and Katara’s eyes narrow, as he struggles to find the words. “How lady-like are you?”
“How lady-like am I?” Her voice is sharp and splitting.
Zuko begins to sputter. “I mean, I guess, do you have delicate tendencies?”
“Delicate tendencies?”
“Why do you keep repeating me?” He groans, not sure if he’s more frustrated with himself or her. “I just need to know if you’re going to freak out about getting a little dirty.”
“What?”
Zuko reaches down and opens the hatch on floor. A wave of noxious smelling fume wave over them.
She pinches her nose and jumps back. “Please tell me that is mostly food waste.”
“Well,” Zuko begins, “depending on how you think about it…”
“There is no need to finish that sentence,” she says definitively. “So that’s how we’re getting out of here?”
Zuko nods.
“Well okay then,” Katara concedes, though she doesn’t look happy about it, she’s willing to do what it takes.
“Do we have to hide in there now? Or can we wait til we’re closer to landing?”
“We’re not waiting til we land,” Zuko says as he pulls what appears to be a large blanket out of his bag.
“What? We must be hundreds of feet up in the air!”
“A thousand at least,” Zuko says nonchalantly.
“We’re not airbenders, Zuko, we can’t fly!”
“Technically, airbenders can’t fly either. They just manipulate the air around them and uses tools to keep themselves in the sky.”
Katara has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “Well, really, Zuko, we can’t do any of that either.”
“Yes, we can,” he says with a slight smile ands hold up the blanket he’d been folding, which he’s fashioned into a parachute.
“This is a spare sail from the ship, and we can make it work like an air balloon.”
“Zuko,” Katara says with an uneasy voice, “I do not think this is a good idea.”
“Yes, it is! I’ve thought this through.” He realizes his response came out harsher than he meant it to can takes a breath to calm himself. “Look, Katara, if we leave now, while we’re still sailing, they’ll have no way of knowing where we’ll land. They’ll have to search hundreds of miles, maybe even more. It’s our best chance at evading them and getting back to Aang unnoticed.”
Katara doesn’t like it, but takes what he’s said seriously, and he’s made a really valid point. “Okay.”
“Okay,” looking into her eyes with a soft smile. “This is the release door. It opens with that lever over there. We’re going to open it and let most of this fall through, and then jump out after it.”
“Right,” Katara says, weakly.
“That way, none of it falls on top of us or damages the parachute.”
“Okay,” she says still unsure about it, but she tries to give him a reassuring look. “You really seem to have thought this through.”
“Umm, yeah. I’m trying to do that more now.”
He finishes twisting and tying the ropes of his parachute around him, and he motions for her to come close to him. She does. He takes a couple ends of the ropes and twists them around her, binding her to him.
“You ready?”
After a moment she just nods and says, “You should know, Zuko, I really don’t like flying.”
“Well, don’t think of it as flying then, think of it more like controlled falling.”
She gulps loudly. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about this.”
“Uh, sorry,” he says, hanging his head slightly. “Just hold onto me, really tightly.”
“Cuz I’ll die if I don’t?”
“I promise, I won’t let you go.” She looks up into his eyes and feels strangely comforted and secure in his arms, and she presses herself close to him.
“You ready?” he asks again, and she just nods into his shoulder, eyes tightly shut.
Zuko can feel her fear and tries to hold her a little tighter, make her feel a bit more secure.
He then grabs the lever on the wall next to him, and the bottom of the garbage chute opens, dumping all the contents into the night sky. When it seems to have mostly cleared, he looks down at Katara, who’s still scrunched up into him, and jumps.