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Chapter 18: Creative Concentration

The next morning, Zuko again awoke before Katara. They had talked long into the night about their homes, falling asleep next to each other leaning against a wall. Stretching out his stiff back, Zuko looked over at the still sleeping Katara. Her head had fallen forward cushioned by her bent knees. He could not see her face today, which he found oddly disappointing. As he watched, she shivered in the cool air of the cave.

Deciding that touching her would be an invasion of her personal space and might get him a face full of freezing water, Zoku carefully blew a stream of hot air around his companion. To his relief, Katara only murmured something incoherent about Appa and stopped shivering.

After his morning meditation, Zuko's hunger got the better of him. He shook Katara, for some reason feeling it was wrong to eat without her. She swatted at his hand saying, "Go away Sokka, food does not eat people. Go bother Aang."

"Katara, wake up, I want to have breakfast," Zuko said, trying to hold back a snigger at her muddled response. She blinked uncomprehendingly up at him as if unsure of his identity, then stiffened under his hand. Zuko withdrew it rapidly.

"I'm awake, I'm awake," she said as if trying to convince herself as much as Zuko. Rubbing her face vigorously, she got to her feet and nearly stumbled into him with her first step.

"Take it easy," he said, putting his hand back out to steady her. "Or you're going to trip and impale yourself on some of those crystals."

"At least then you would have all the food to yourself," she said righting herself.

"Yeah, but then I would have no one to talk to."

This last surprised them both. They each felt heat rise to their faces.

"Come on," Zuko said gruffly, hurriedly walking away from her over to where they had been leaving the supplies. Katara followed after him, staring at the Fire Nation prince's back as if she could read the true meaning behind his words if she just looked hard enough. But his shoulders proved as enigmatic as his words.

After their meager breakfast of a cracker, two nuts, and a piece of dried fruit each, Katara hesitantly broached a subject that had been nagging at her since the previous evening, "I think yesterday was a mistake."

Zuko's head whipped around to face her, his golden eyes piercing yet guarded.

"In a lean year, our tribe sometimes ends up on fairly scant rations during the winter." Zuko's shoulders seemed to relax marginally as if this had not been the sentence, he expected to follow the previous. "During those times, we try to conserve our energy as much as possible. We try not to be too active as it only makes us hungrier. I think we should probably keep our training to a minimum so we don't wear ourselves out pointlessly."

Katara half expected Zuko to growl at her about being a stupid peasant who had no right to order around a prince of the Fire Nation. Instead, Zuko said, "You're right. We should save our strength. Maybe we could just try some control exercises with our elements instead."

Greatly relieved that Zuko was being reasonable, Katara smiled at him causing him to flush slightly. "What did you have in mind?"

As answer, Zuko stuck out his hand, a flame bursting to life in his palm. Concentrating on the flame he made it rise and fall with his breathing as he did when he meditated, then to Katara's amazement transformed it into a tree. Seeing her impressed expression, Zuko smirked. "Let's see what you can do with yours, waterbender."

Katara's eyes flashed brightly at the challenge. Summoning some water from the recently reinforced containers, she tried to think of how best to approach shaping it. The water swirled amorphously above her hand as she let it ebb and flow with the beating of her heart. After several long moments of feeling the pulse of the water, she sent it swirling into the shape of a rose with many layers of delicate petals. With a squeeze of her fingers, she made it freeze in facets like crystal so it would catch the light of the flames still dancing in Zuko's hand.

Zuko raised his one good eyebrow. He was slightly jealous that Katara's element allowed her to work with it in both liquid and solid states. Next, he produced a flaming messenger hawk in flight.

Katara responded with a sailboat skimming over a sea of her own creation. And so, it went all morning, each seeking to outdo the other with more and more complicated forms and scenes.

The competition finally ended when both their stomachs gave huge rumbles reminding them of how little they had eaten. Katara laughed, sending the water streaming back into its ice mold.

Zuko, for his part, thought this might have been the most intense training he had done since his failed attempt to master lightning. It was also infinitely more enjoyable. Not only had they both been forced to stretch their control and creativity, but their creations had also served the secondary purpose of entertaining them.

As they chewed their solitary strips of jerky, they discussed their favorite creations. Zuko had been particularly enamored of the scene of a traditional Water Tribe ritual dance, the figures swaying and moving to imagined music. Katara admired the two dragons flying aerial acrobatics around each other.

"Have you seen dragons fly like that in the Fire Nation?" Katara asked excitedly. The only aspect of the Fire Nation that had ever appealed to her was the stories about the mighty dragons.

"No," Zuko said, looking away from her eager expression. "There are no dragons left."

"What? What happened to them?" Katara asked, horrified.

"In the time of my great grandfather, Sozin, it became a mark of pride and strength for a firebender to kill a dragon. They were hunted to extinction over the next hundred years. My uncle may have been the one to slay the last of them."

"Your uncle, Iroh?" Katara could not believe that kindly round old man had once killed a dragon.

"Yes, that's why he is called the Dragon of the West. He was once the greatest firebender in our nation."

"Well, that is just awful!" Katara declared. "Killing innocent animals for sport. It's disgusting."

"Your people hunt too," Zuko shot back defensively. "Aren't those bones strung in your hair?"

"It's different. We hunt to survive. We use every part of every animal we kill, including their bones. We honor their sacrifice and certainly don't treat it as a game," she replied, scowling. "That's something that Aang has never really understood."

"Guru goody goody doesn't like hunting?" Zuko guessed.

"He's a vegetarian and is always lecturing Sokka and me about the sanctity of all life. What he doesn't understand is that not much grows on ice flows. We can get some nutrients from sea plants but not enough to sustain a person in that kind of cold. You eat meat or you die. You wear furs or you freeze. There isn't a lot of room for high minded ideals.

"Of course, Sokka might have taken that philosophy to an extreme. That boy lives for meat. He once fought an arctic caribou bear over a tiger seal he had killed."

"What happened?" asked Zuko, fascinated by the seeming savagery of life at the South Pole.

"He lost, but at least he made it out of the fight with all his limbs intact. He did lose my father's favorite spear in the process. Gran Gran had him on double chores for a lunar cycle afterward." Katara smirked reminiscently at the thought of Sokka's rambling muttered complaints during those months.

"Have you ever hunted?" Zuko had never seen the girl carry a weapon other than her waterskins. He could not imagine hunting with his element. Cook with it, of course, but not hunt with it. It was too noisy.

"Sure, after all of the men left there were not a lot of other options to keep us all fed," Katara answered matter of factly. "I am a much better fisher than hunter though. I have the patience more than the stealth. Sokka is the real hunter. He can track anything, but he doesn't have the patience for fish."

Zuko thought back to his own failed attempts at hunting and fishing during his time as a fugitive traveling across the Earth Kingdom. He thought Katara was being overly modest as he had both tracking skills and stealth, yet had still managed to catch almost nothing.

"I suppose you never really had to worry about where your food came from growing up in the palace," she said with only a touch of bitterness.

"No, I didn't. But during the last year, I've learned to appreciate the skill it takes to feed yourself."

Katara took in his too prominent cheekbones and the reduction in his mass again. She believed that he had had many struggles since their duel at the North Pole. If it had been Aang or Sokka, she would have asked but this was Zuko. Asking about what looked like months of malnutrition and hunger felt too personal. Instead, she turned the discussion to lighter things, asking, "So what is your favorite food?"

"Sea bass crusted in fire flakes." Zuko could feel his mouth begin to water just at the thought.

"You firebenders do like your spicy food. I've had fire flakes before. I can imagine that would be good with some lemon squeezed over it."

Zuko was a little surprised that Katara had eaten Fire Nation food. The more he learned about her the more he realized he did not know. "What's your favorite food?"

"My Gran Gran's stewed sea prunes," she said with a happy sigh.

"Stewed what?" Zuko thought he must have misheard her.

"Sea prunes."

"That sounds disgusting."

"Hey! I said yours sounded nice."

"Yeah, but mine is nice. Yours sounds like it would taste like soggy old boot leather and smell worse."

"It is delicious! Aang even ate a bowl full when we ran into Bato at the abbey where you attacked us with that bounty hunter."

"Well as long as the Avatar thinks it's good."

"You're impossible!" Katara began to get up to storm past him, but Zuko reached out, catching her wrist.

"Wait! I didn't mean to upset you. I've had to eat soggy old boot leather before, it wasn't as bad as you would think."

Startled by this admission, Katara stopped, not pulling away. "When did you have to eat boot leather?" She had thought he looked much thinner but eating boot leather was an act of true desperation.

"After the North Pole. My uncle and I drifted on a raft for weeks until we reached the northern territory of the Earth Kingdom. We went through both pairs of our boots," he said, still lightly holding her wrist. He shuddered at the recollection of the thirst, hunger, and exposure.

"Well that is one I've never had to resort to," she said sitting down again, closer to him than before. She had not extricated her wrist because the warmth of his grasp felt so nice on her chilled skin. Firebender body heat is wasted in the Fire Nation.

After that, they talked about their adventures since leaving their homes. Zuko told the story of rescuing his uncle from an Earth Kingdom patrol and Katara told of Aang's trial for the crimes of Avatar Kyoshi. They seemed to each carefully choose adventures that did not include their frequent encounters.

Zuko was fairly certain that these last few days with Katara involved the most talking he had ever done in his life. He found it increasingly easy to talk to her, unlike his interactions with Song and Jin. She was lively and funny, giving more than she took. More importantly, there was no need for pretense or evasion. Katara had already seen the worst of him. He could just be himself.

Suppressing a huge yawn, Katara finally suggested that they get some sleep. That night the two benders stretched out where they sat, laying down side by side within arm's reach of each other. They drifted off to thoughts of the adventures that had brought them to this place.

A/N:

Initially, I had planned to have all the chapters taking place in the Crystal Cavern have "C. C." chapter titles. I gave up on that in the next chapter.

This was quite a short one but it balances out the length of the next. Hope you are all well.