Sorry I haven’t updated for a while, been a bit busy.
Thank you all so much for your comments, they’re so great to read. Please keep telling me what you think!
In the meantime, I’ll try to update as much as possible.
-Ellie
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The floor writhed under her feet as Katara sat up and groaned. A headache stabbed against her skull, and she put her cool palm against her forehead in an attempt to calm it down. After a while, her head cleared and Katara could think again.
She knew what had happened, but had no idea where she was. Judging by the constant tilting of the floor and the slightly damp cell she was currently in, Katara was on a boat. A quick look through the circular window told her the same thing.
Ha, she thought. Water. Zuko’s really not as smart as he thinks he is.
Getting up awkwardly – her leg had gone numb because of the way she’d been sleeping – Katara steadied herself. She raised her hands and began to move them in a single fluid motion, aiming to create an ice shard hard enough to break through the iron hull separating her from the river. If this worked, she could take down two birds with one stone. Katara would escape, and the Fire Nation boat would sink, delaying the Prince’s hunt for Aang. She smiled smugly and waited for the familiar feeling of control. But the water never called to her.
Katara lost track of how long she spent trying to waterbend. With every attempt she grew more and more frustrated until finally, exhausted and angry, she slumped down with an annoyed sigh.
Her brow furrowed and she ran her fingers through her messy hair. What was wrong with her? She knew she wasn’t a master yet – far from it – but shouldn’t something have happened by now? The water had stubbornly remained unresponsive, and Katara hadn’t felt the usual stillness that accompanied waterbending.
She growled and banged her fist against the metal just as a dark figure slunk out of the shadows.
“Your waterbending won’t work here,” said a gravelly voice. Katara immediately recognised it as the voice that had hunted them all over the world. An involuntary shiver ran up her spine.
“And why’s that?” she asked, her voice as cold as ice.
The Fire Prince chuckled. “The iron blocks your skills. As long as you’re on this ship, you can’t affect water.”
Katara composed herself before her shock became obvious. She’d never been rendered completely useless before. It hadn’t occurred to her that her waterbending could be blocked. Her panicked mind raced as she tried to come up with an escape plan.
Zuko’s self-satisfied smile filtered through her thoughts and she realised she could use his ego to her advantage. If he was telling the truth, and she really was helpless, there was only one way to get off this ship: by using cunning and a bit of luck.
But she couldn’t make it obvious.
Katara slid her back down the cool metal of the boat’s frame. She forced her body into a relaxed position and crossed her arms. Forming a reluctantly impressed expression onto her perfect features, the Water Tribe girl found Zuko’s fiery eyes behind the bars of her cell.
“You must have been planning this for a long time,” she said.
Zuko tried to hide his glowing pride, but the girl’s sea-green eyes bored into him as if they saw everything. It was very unnerving and it made his heart beat wildly. He quickly averted his gaze before she could affect him anymore. The Prince took a deep breath and turned back to Katara, her slender form radiating uncertainty. Good. Soon she would give him the information he sought in return for her release and his suffering would be over.
The banished Prince stalked towards the door, his back to the Water Tribe girl. But before he shut her in once again, Zuko looked over his shoulder and smirked.
“Ages,” he told her, clanging the iron door shut behind him.
Katara smiled grimly in the dim light, hating the manipulation Zuko had reduced her to. But she had to get back. Aang and Sokka were relying on her.
***
“Sokka, we have no choice,” Aang told the sour-faced teenager in front of him. “I don’t like it either, you know I don’t, but we need help if we want to get Katara back. And he’s the best tracker around.”
Sokka nodded regretfully. He knew the boy was right. They’d been travelling around the same forest for hours and hadn’t seen any sign of Katara.
“Alright,” he said. “But for La’s sake, don’t trust everything he says. We don’t need a repeat of last time. Not now.”
Aang gave a sharp tug on Appa’s reins and they began to fly back the way they’d come, both boys aware of the lack of Katara’s presence.
