Chapter 10: Blood

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Blood pounded in her ears a throbbing rhythm; the sun beat relentlessly on her sweat-soaked shoulders. Katara pressed her back firmly against the stone wall as she tried to quiet her heart and slow her gasping breaths.

The sun had almost reached its apex in the sky and beamed hot and brilliant onto the shadeless expanse of the grand Royal Plaza.

A wide strip of crimson road coursed like an artery from the mouth of the forum at the harbour to the fortified gates leading into the capital. Guards clad in black and red lined the path, separating the crowds from the prisoners. A massive raised platform had been erected near the gates, upon which a crudely assembled wooden frame stood. Half a dozen or so nooses swung like children's swing sets with the eddies of hot summer air.

The crown prince had yet to make an entrance, but his prisoners and audience alike had been standing under the sun all morning. Either group anticipated the day's proceedings with an increasingly hectic, manic energy.

Katara stood directly across from the left side of the platform, all the way against the walls of the forum and almost buried behind swaths of swarming bodies vying for a glimpse of the show's principle players. Trying not to panic at the sheer impossibility of her task, Katara placed a hand against her hip where she had strapped a bottle of water under her shirt.

She had snuck out at dawn, dressed once more as a servant boy, and followed the trickle of people out of the gates and to the plaza. The night before she had barely slept. Azula's revelation had pulled her back into a vortex of despair; she spent the remainder of the day silent and all but oblivious to her surroundings.

But then, as she absent-mindedly watched the sun sinking past the horizon from the window of her room, Katara suddenly awoke to the rapid passage of time. Only a handful of hours remained to separate her friends from certain death. Only a handful of hours left for her to get them out. And so, Katara had lain awake almost the entire night, mind racing, barely aware of her roommate's tossing and turning mere feet away, as she devised a plan.

Even with the moon in the sky, she knew that with so little information she couldn't find them and break them out in the night. Her only opportunity would be in the plaza itself, where security would be high but the numbers in the crowds would be higher. There, she could have a chance at slipping a few of them – Sokka, Suki, Toph, and her father at the very least – past the guards and disappear into the crowds.

Now, Katara stood on her toes, trying to see past the thousands of bobbing heads separating her from the line of prisoners. Scanning their dejected faces, she found none that were familiar. Some were crying, begging the guards for mercy, while others merely stood silent. Still others clutched at one another in their final moments – Katara caught glimpses of lovers with foreheads pressed together and a mother holding a young child who couldn't have been more than four or five.

Pushing down the urge to cry, Katara continued to search for her own loved ones. In the line of grey, haggard faces, she suddenly caught glimpse of one figure shorter than the others.

Toph…

Katara pushed off the wall and dived into the crowds towards the younger girl. The small earthbender stood near the end of the line, and as Katara approached, she saw that her hands and feet were bound with course ropes rather than metal. The two guards standing on either side of her also wore thick leather armor instead of the metal uniforms of the rest of the guards. As Katara pushed through the last few layers of bodies before her, she could hear the guards squabbling over something.

"…but it's my turn to take a break!"

"The last time you took a 'break' you were gone for half an hour," he jabbed a finger at the other guard's chest. "And you can start making up for that right now."

With that he turned and began to walk away.

"Look, I just need to go to the bathroom," the other guard called after him. "She's all tied up anyway, I'm pretty sure we can leave her here for a few minutes."

"Don't you dare leave the prisoner unguarded – if she get's away now they'll have both of our heads!" he called back without stopping.

By then Katara was standing not ten feet away, but Toph didn't seem to notice her there. She watched as the remaining guard turned to consider his prisoner.

"You would be an idiot to try to escape now," he mumbled to himself.

Toph snorted, "If your idiot prisoner manages to escape then what would that make y-"

Katara watched in horror as the guard bent a stream of fire at Toph's feet. The girl screamed and fell back as the flames licked at her flesh.

The guard barked out a harsh laugh. "That oughta keep you from trying anything," he said, walking in the direction of his partner.

She understood now, why Toph didn't sense her presence. They had been burning her feet. Toph couldn't see.

Toph's screams had drawn the attention of those standing nearby, but as her shrieks quieted to a soft whimper, they all began to turn away. Katara, burying the urge to go after the guard and shove icicles through his body, approached her cautiously.

"Toph," she said quietly, letting the din of the crowd carry away her words. "It's me, Katara," she swallowed thickly, a sob suddenly twisting a knot at her throat, threatening to burst forth.

The earthbender pressed her bound hands into the earth in front of her, trying both to see and to balance her feet off the ground. She raised her head towards Katara, unseeing eyes widening in disbelief. "It is you…we thought…"

"I'm here, I'm okay," Katara choked back her tears and knelt as close as she dared. "And you will be too, soon. I'm going to try to get you out."

Toph fell silent and dropped her head once more to let her hair fall over her face.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Toph, I'm not leaving this godforsaken island without you – any of you. I know it sounds insane but I have a–"

"What plan could possibly get all of us past the entire imperial guard and across the ocean?" Toph cut her off. "You can't afford to risk helping even one of us or you'll get chained up and hung too…Katara, you need to run."

"No!" Katara could feel her desperation and anger flushing her cheeks a hot, splotchy red. "I can't leave you, I…I don't care if they get me, I–"

"We thought you and Aang had both died!" Toph retorted once more. "I knew they were telling the truth. I was the first to know but I…even when our people started to give up…I couldn't bring myself to believe it."

Katara watched Toph's face crumple into a distressed grimace.

"I kept fighting and then they…they took Sokka," tears were now streaking down her face, silently slipping across her cheeks and dripping onto the dusty earth below. "I tried to go after the soldiers that captured him but they had Suki, too and they threatened to kill her if I didn't stop.

"They must've known that Sokka was important, that he had information and so they couldn't kill him yet. But Suki…I had no choice but to let them take me too.

"And when they burned my feet…"

Katara couldn't stanch her tears any longer as Toph's voice broke off into silence. The bright summer sun continued to scorch from above, drying the tears almost as soon as they touched the cracked earth. "I can't – I won't–" she started again.

"Don't you understand?" Toph was barely speaking anymore, her hoarse voice strangled between a sob and a shout. "I'm blind, Katara! I can't walk, let alone run or fight! I don't even know what they did to Sokka and Suki but I'm sure they're not much better off…You can't save us this time."

"Yes, I can," Katara angrily wiped at the wetness on her face, not caring that it caused a pain to blossom once more over her right cheek as she did so. Without another word, she reached forward to untie the charred ropes around Toph's feet.

Before she had a chance to even registered the movement in front her eyes, a three-inch long gash suddenly appeared across one of her hands.

"You should've listened to your friend."

A gloved hand came around Katara's face to cover her mouth and pull her against something – someone. At the same time, she felt cold metal pressing against her throat.

"Katara, no!" Toph cried out as Katara moved to bend the water at her hip.

"Move another inch and die." Katara could feel the weight of the threat in the insistence of the blade at her throat. She could already feel blood trickling down her neck.

"That's right. Now, you'll clasp your hands together in front of your body where I can see them and you won't make a sound." It was a woman's voice. A dull, emotionless voice.

Mai.

The blood drained from Katara's face. Mai lifted a hand off her face to feel at her sides for her water. Once she found it, she tore it from her hip and tossed it off to the side.

No...you can't do this…not when I'm so close…

"Now, you'll do as I say," Mai hissed into her ear. "Or I'll skin you alive right here, right now, right in front of your little friend."

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A/N:

It's been 8 months.

Wow, so sorry about that. Um. Life happened…buuut I'm back!

This is a really short chapter, I realize, but it's really only half of the chapter I had originally planned for. I may or may not finish the second half (which is Zuko's POV of execution day) tonight but, in the event that I don't get to it for another week, I wanted to post the first half now.

In all honesty I won't be able to write regularly again until late May but it was Easter weekend so I re-started anyways.

(Sorry again.)

(I love you.)