The Forgiven (Zutara)

Friend or Foe?

Hey guys I'm having some technical difficulties trying to copy and paste this from the original google docs form I originally typed this on. Let me know if the words are showing up black on your end too. I'll try and fix it, but I need input.
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"Omashu isn't a good place, not for you right now." Katara reminded me I nodded.

"Yes I know. I doubt she'd be in such a populated place full of supporters for my father anyways, I think we should just go around it." I proposed.

"So through the misty palms then? Everywhere else is the middle of nowhere." Katara said. I nodded.

"Yes I suppose you're right. I was hoping it wouldn't take long but it seems as though it will." I sighed.

"I've been meaning to ask Zuko, why wait till now to try and find her?" Katara asked.

"I've been looking for her this entire time. Just from within the palace walls, I told myself that unless I found a real true hope that she might be alive I wouldn't leave for such an endeavor, especially with the entire fire nation on eggshells." I replied. "But I found that hope. I found someone who said she'd smuggled letters between the man my mother was once engaged to before my father forced her hand. She said her last known location was somewhere near Huru." I continued.

"You never told me that." Katara mentioned. I looked down at my feet. "About your mother and your father. I wasn't ignorant enough to think that he could be a good husband, I guess I just never realized she was forced to marry him." Katara said.

"I didn't tell you because it's not something I like to think about. Nobody should be forced into anything. My mother could've had a life wherever she was. With loving parents, she would've been happy. But instead my father happened." I walked just thinking about it. Perhaps she wouldn't want to see me. Something that reminded her of him. Maybe that would be the second worst thing for her.

"Zuko. Stop that. Whatever your thinking knock it off. I hear the gears turning and they aren't making a good sound." Katara said. "Come on. If she's in Huru we should start covering ground." Katara said. I nodded. We had to get to The Great Divide and find a place to stay for the night. We made it there by evening and got a hotel to stay in. They had bathhouses but they were public and only had a small curtain separating them which the men staying in the hotel would rip open and make the other women uncomfortable. I stepped forward about to do something about it, but Katara grabbed my arm and shook her head. There were different locker rooms for each, which weren't connected.

"Zuko you'll only draw unwanted attention to yourself." She whispered.

"I'm not going to stand here and watch this." I huffed.

"When have you ever known me to turn my back on people? I'm not asking you to do that. I'm just saying you're not going to be blasting fire at them. You don't know what the Earth Kingdom is like. They're throwing any unregistered fire bender into prison. They leave them there till they starve to death." She said. My eyes widened but before I could ask her what she meant by unregistered fire bender, she bent water from both sides to create a thick wall of ice between the men and women. The men no longer had access to the women's side of the bathhouse.

"As for you and I, I doubt we'll be welcome to join them considering what I just did. We'll go find a hot spring or something." Katara said pulling me out of there and walking back out of the hotel after we'd paid for it. I nodded. We trekked back into the forest. Katara started waving her arms around, and I looked at her confused. She was doing water bending techniques but she wasn't bending any water.

"Uhh...What-What're you doing?" I asked awkwardly.

"Trying to feel where the nearest body of water is. It's over here to the left." She spoke. We walked about half a mile out until we found a small waterfall that was connected to a freezing cold river. She sighed. "Zuko, any way you can heat this up?" She asked. I chuckled.