A Different Destiny

Chapter 34

After Katara's encounter with Captain Zhou she was moved to another cell and to her surprise conditions improved...as much as they could in a situation like this.

Although she was still somewhat restrained, she was no longer stuck to a cold metal wall. Shackles had been attached to both of her legs and her good arm, and long chains attached to those that trailed across the room and eventually ended in a bolt on the floor.

The upside of this new setup was being able to get up and move around the room. Though, the chains stopped her several feet from the one steel door that led in and out of the room. This had annoyed her when she realized it at first, but she knew it made sense. They might have made her stay a little more comfortable but she was still a prisoner. She hadn't entirely figured out their motivations yet but she had a dark feeling it was nothing she would like.

She looked around the room taking inventory of the rest of her surroundings, but there wasn't much to mentally log. There was a steel bunk bed that was fused into the metal of the ship, she supposed that was to limit any options potential prisoners had for weapons. She smiled and thought of Toph who would've laughed at that line, knowing that with a few stomps of her feet and sharp movements of her arms, she could crush the entire vessel like tin.

But not Katara. She could feel the toll that dehydration was taking on her body in addition to her still injured arm. Most of her liquids lately had come from the various fruits and vegetables that had become her diet as a prisoner. She understood why they did this, these foods helped supplement her body from the one time a day she was given water.

It was usually in the morning and it was simultaneously the worst and best part of her day. Thinking about it rocked her body with a fear and horror she hadn't ever known. But at the same time she needed those moments as much as her body needed the water. It was the only time she could even come close to her natural element.

Despite her still injured arm, she was never given water with less than 10 soldiers present. Although Katara guessed it was likely at the same time every day given the organization and efficiency she had seen around the ship, she had no way to confirm this.

Without warning or any kind of preamble the soldiers would burst through the door, slamming the metal of the door into the wall. Before Katara could react, soldiers would grab her uninjured arm and force her to her knees. Then for what felt like both an eternity of hell and a desert storm after a long drought, a soldier would use a small sponge to squeeze mouthfuls of water into her mouth.

It was the most dehumanizing and humiliating thing another human being had ever done to her. Her body had quite literally been beaten, twisted, and broken. She was cut off from everyone she cared about and she still didn't know what had happened to Zuko.

Although she was trapped in a hell she could've never imagined, she found her mind wandering to him and how he was doing. She worried again that Gua or his crew would return to the hut they had stayed in and hurt Zuko.

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Soon time became nothing but a distant and abstract idea that Katara could no longer wrap her mind around. Without windows or interactions with anyone other than the soldiers who tortured her, Katara couldn't tell if 3 days or 300 had passed. The longer that she stayed in these conditions, the less she cared. She spent most of her days sitting on her cot, eyes heavy as she wished away the sight in front of her. In those moments she fled to the corners of her mind to get away and allowed herself the small comfort of getting lost in her thoughts.

Her mind wandered from things as lovely and simple as playing in the snow with Sokka and the other village children, or curling up with her parents and brother next to a roaring fire late at night.