Chapter Text
Sokka wakes groggily. He cracks one eye open, sees no hint of sunrise, and rolls over in his sleeping bag. A pack rustles next to him, and he bolts upright, boomerang in hand.
“Katara?”
His sister is stuffing her clothes into her pack, sleeping bag already rolled up and tied to the bottom.
“Katara, what- “
She hisses at him, jumping to cover his mouth with her hand. “Be quiet! I don’t want to wake Aang.”
Sokka frowns, peeling her hand away. “What are you doing? Why don’t you want to wake Aang?”
She sighs. “Sokka, you saw what happened with General Fong. Aang was forced into the Avatar state because of me. I don’t want to endanger him like that again. I have to leave.”
His chest becomes painfully tight. He’d watched, helpless and powerless, while his baby sister was swallowed by the earth. A breeze caresses his cheek, like the phantom touch of the woman who gave her life back to the moon. Sokka shakes his head. “Are you crazy? We are in the middle of the Earth Kingdom! And Aang still needs you to teach him water bending!”
“He has the scrolls! And we had the same lessons from Master Pakku. He’ll be fine!”
Sokka can see her eyes watering. He’s standing on the shore, on the day his father sailed to war; he’s running into their home, seeing his baby sister crying over their mother; he’s in the Spirit Oasis when the woman he loves collapses, lifeless in his arms. A new seam opens in his battered heart. “Where will you go? We don’t know anybody in the Earth Kingdom.”
“I’m going back to Kyoshi Island. I want to help Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors. Maybe they can teach me how to fight without my bending, like they did with you.”
Suki will keep her safe, he thinks. Out loud, he says, “That’s too far to go on foot! Just wait until the morning, and we can fly you there.”
She shakes her head. “Aang will try to convince me to stay, and what if that triggers his Avatar state? Even if he agreed, I won’t delay him learning earth bending. This is the only way.” She hugs herself, looking down. “I thought, when I learned bending, that I would be able to protect myself. That I wouldn’t be captured again.” Sokka winces when he remembers seeing her tied to a tree with Zuko and the pirates. Her expression hardens as she looks up at him. “I won’t let anyone use me to get to Aang again.”
Sokka opens his mouth to argue, but her expression stops him. He knows this look. Katara has made up her mind, and nothing will change it. “If you leave, how can I keep you safe?”
Her tears fall down both cheeks, and his vision blurs. “I’m sorry, Sokka. But I have to go.” She crashes into him, and he holds her as tight as he can. “I’ll send a letter as soon as I get to Kyoshi,” she vows.
Sokka pulls back, staring at his sister’s face, trying to memorize every inch. “Guess you really have earned the mark of the brave,” he jokes, ignoring the lump in his throat. “I love you, little sis.”
She sniffles, wiping her eyes. “I love you too, big bro.” She slings her pack over her shoulder, takes one last glance around their camp site, and turns away to disappear into the woods.
Sokka rubs his eyes, sighing to Momo, who is now perched on his shoulder. “She’ll be fine.” He turns to look at Aang, still fast asleep on Appa’s tail. “He might kill me.”
Katara makes good time retracing their route along the Earth kingdom coast, keeping a wide berth of the fort. By the next evening, she has reached a small fishing village with a bustling harbor. She wanders the docks, missing the ease of flying with Appa but also eager to be out at sea again.
“Kyoshi? Why’d you wanna go there?”
She huffs at the sailor repairing his net. “I have family there, and nowhere else to go.” This story seems safe enough. Tui knows enough people have been displaced by this war, and once she gets there, she can count on Suki to back her up. That backup might be with her deadly fans, but either way, she’ll be safe.
The fisherman leans forward and looks her up and down. Her skin crawls everywhere his gaze lands. “That’s gonna be a week’s journey, at least. I’ve gotta dodge storms, and the Fire Navy, not to mention that damned Unagi. And you don’t look like you’ve got the coin for it. Sorry, girl.”
Her heart speeds up, cold washing over her. This is the last ship left, and her only chance at leaving tonight. She sighs, and lifts her arm, palm up. A wall of water rears up behind the fisherman. He turns, and his jaw drops. “You won’t have to worry about any of that with me on board.”
He turns back as she returns the water to the harbor. With a grin, he holds out his hand. “You’ve got a deal! Come back after sunset, and we’ll be ready to depart!”
She shakes his hand, grinning, before returning to the town. The sun is already low on the horizon, so she goes to grab a bite to eat and write a quick letter to Sokka and Aang. After she drops off her letter at the message center, she takes her rice ball to a rocky beach near the docks. She hopes that Aang and Sokka were able to make it to Omashu today. The idea of spending a week on a boat with strangers is less than ideal, and she finds herself again missing the simplicity of flying over the world on Appa.
There’s a familiar tug in her chest when she thinks of her brother and the Avatar. Just another piece of her life this war has taken from her. They’ll be fine, she tells herself. They’re going to see Bumi, who can teach Aang everything he needs to know, and they’ll be living in a palace. A rumble echoes from the other end of the docks, and she flinches, feeling the phantom tightness of earth encasing her legs. Stop it. Don’t think about that. Taking a deep inhale, she turns her eyes to the waves, imagining she’s a tiger seal playing in the surf.
The sun finally disappears over the horizon, and she returns to the harbor, now alight with the yellow glow of the lanterns.
As she walks down the boardwalk towards her ride, the harbor seems eerily quiet. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she reaches out to collect a stream of water. Before she can, the fisherman she’d talked to earlier steps out from around the ship.
“Ready to depart?” he asks, his voice cracking on the last word. Katara narrows her eyes.
Footsteps on the planks cause her to whirl, water whip knocking back two men armed with long sticks.
“Guess you weren’t lying.”
Katara spins, but before she can react, she feels two fingers jab at the back of her neck. She collapses to the ground, her whole body feeling like a dead weight. She looks up as much as she can, panic rising in her chest with nowhere to go.
Four men stand over her now, their faces too far above her to make out.
“We’re rich, boys!” The fisherman claps his hands with joy. “Let’s get her on board.”
One of them leans down, holding a canteen. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he says as he lifts her limp body, cradling her neck. He holds the canteen to her lips, and she tries her best to scowl as he tips it toward her lips. “It’s this, or I hit you in the head.”
Katara doesn’t really know which one is worse, but she unclenches her teeth, forcing herself to swallow the liquid. “Smart girl,” the man hums as everything goes hazy. She feels herself being lifted before everything goes black.
Zuko had never been more humiliated.
Well, he had. But after losing to his sister, as usual, and having to run like a fugitive away from his own home, this is the final straw.
Begging on the side of the road, watching his uncle dance for their dinner, was too much for him to stomach.
Taking the dual swords from the offending man later that night makes him feel better.
“Uncle will understand,” he mutters as he slips between the shadows, making his way back to their camp above the town. They can’t be fire benders here, but he can keep them safe with regular weapons. He spent enough time learning to use them, before his fire bending became useful.
As he passes the last of the buildings, just before his feet touch the bridge, his senses go on high alert. Turning towards the river’s bank, he sees the glow of a campfire beyond a thick clump of bushes. Men’s voices rise and fall as Zuko stalks closer. He thinks about turning back just as he hears it: a woman’s feral yell, then the crunch of ice sheets colliding.
“Shit, she’s awake!”
“Somebody hit her! Knock her out!”
“Let me go!”
His eyes widen. He knows that voice.
The too-familiar thump of a body hitting the ground, and the voices quiet down. Zuko crouches and moves towards the commotion, crawling into the brush and adjusting the branches for a better look.
Ice glitters in the firelight, a large sheet of it under the body of the water tribe girl and another two pinning a man to the ground. Three men stand over her, the dancing shadows blurring their faces.
“Do you think she’s dead?” the middle one asks. He is clobbered over the head by the left one.
“She'd better not be! We don’t get paid for transporting a body! What good is a dead water bender to the fire nation?”
Zuko has never been able to stomach the idea of selling people. He knows there were slaves at the palace, but the idea of treating people like livestock still made his blood boil. Even if the person being sold is the Avatar’s water bender.
You can’t be serious, he thinks. He just gave up chasing the Avatar, after his sister tried to imprison him, and he’s considering saving the Avatar’s water bender? What good would that be? He can barely save himself and his uncle, let alone another person. And this person has very good reasons to want him dead. Saving her is a terrible idea.
Get up, he urges. Get up. Fight them. Why don’t you fight them?
But the girl’s body does not move.
He’s done a lot of stupid things while wearing this mask, but this might be the dumbest one.
He circles the three slavers, stalking behind them as they debate the best way to tie her up. One of the men lifts her head and pours a liquid down her throat. Zuko steps up and cracks two of their heads together before punching the last one on the jaw. All three fall to the ground in a heap. He goes to the water bender and rolls her into his lap, brushing a strand of hair from her face. She looks thinner than he remembers, and she has a cut on her lip and a red welt on her forehead. He holds his good ear over her mouth and hears her exhale gently. Satisfied that she is not dead, he hoists her onto his back, his arms looped around her legs and her arms dangling over his shoulders. He gives one of the bodies a swift kick in the ribs for good measure before taking off at a jog through the brush.
She barely weighs more than the Avatar did. “How did you end up out here,” he wonders out loud. He hoists her a little higher and hears her sigh softly. “You know I did this for the Avatar once. Got him away from Zhao. Escaped the Yu Yan archers.” Chased him away after he rescued me when he should have left me for dead. “Never thought I’d have to be rescuing you.”
She squirms against his back, and Zuko stills. He didn’t think about what would happen if she woke up while he was carrying her. Her arms tighten around his neck. “Liar,” she mumbles against his neck. “Zhao never caught Aang.” She exhales heavily, and the scent of her breath makes him flinch. He remembers that scent from the tea he was forced to drink after his first Agni Kai.
“I’m not lying,” he says out loud as he starts jogging again. “He kept trying to collect frogs.”
He feels her humming against his spine. “Sokka and I got really sick. We had to suck on frogs to feel better.” Her limbs tighten against him, as if she’s trying to curl up even closer. “I’d do it again if I could feel better now.”
He walks a little faster, trying not to jostle her. He remembers being nauseous when he took the tea, but that might have been because he was on a ship. “My uncle brews amazing tea. I’m sure that’ll make you feel better.”
“Tea sounds lovely, Prince Zuko.”
His eyes widen, but she’s already breathing evenly again, so he assumes she’s not fully conscious. “I’m not Zuko. I’m the Blue Spirit,” he mutters.
“Okay, Blue Spirit.”
The drugs seem to be keeping her on the brink of consciousness, so he stops talking. A few more yards, and he’s reached the rocky outcropping he and his uncle are sheltering in. The fire is down to embers, and Iroh is snoring away, his back to the entrance.
“Uncle,” Zuko whispers. The Dragon of the West is on his feet in an instant.
He blinks at Zuko, until Zuko pulls up his mask to reveal his face. “Nephew, what are you doing?”
“She needs help.” He angles his body to better show the sleeping water bender he carries. “She’s been drugged.”
Iroh helps lift her down, and Zuko tugs to dislodge her arms from around his throat. They lay her on Zuko’s bedroll, and Zuko covers her with his blanket.
“How did you find her?” Iroh is already stoking the fire, setting up the kettle.
Zuko sits by her head, leaning his back against the wall. “There was something I needed in town. I heard her and the men that wanted to sell her to the Fire Nation.”
Iroh nods slowly. “You did the right thing. Selling another person is a most despicable crime.” He eyes the sword on the ground next to Zuko and sighs. “I suppose it does make sense for you to have a weapon that is not fire while we travel through the Earth Kingdom.”
Zuko leans over her head, holding up a flame to look at it more closely. The bruise is fresh, still bright red, and he wonders how they managed to get close enough to strike her.
The woman he’d fought at the North Pole would never have been captured in the first place.
“Here.” Iroh returns with a steaming cup, and Zuko pulls her into a sitting position. Iroh begins to tilt the tea into her mouth, but the water bender’s brows furrow, and she turns her head.
“Drink,” Zuko encourages. “It will help.”
Her arm swings out, but Zuko catches her hand with his before she can knock down the cup. She relaxes, allowing Iroh to tip the liquid into her mouth. She sighs, and slumps down against Zuko, finally asleep. He repositions her on the bedroll, then resumes his seat by her head.
“She will have many questions when she wakes up,” Iroh says. Zuko nods. “She might even attack us.”
He smirks. “She might.”
Iroh stares at him for a long time before leaning in and gripping his shoulder. “You did the right thing, Zuko.” They smile at each other before Iroh yawns and stretches. “Well, I’m going back to sleep. You should do the same. You’ve had a long night.”
Zuko looks down at Katara, then out at the forest surrounding them. “I’ll be fine.” He pushes down the flames of their fire and folds his arms around his new sword, tucking it against his chest as he waits for the dawn.