Ok, here it is, I finally updated! No time to explain, the giant absence just kinda happened, between finals and driver's ed (may they all die horrible fiery deaths), and just plain old writer's block. But don't worry, I have some great ideas for the next few chapters and I hope you guys love it.

Special thanks to anyone who reviewed I VLOVE YOU GUYS! U ROCK!

Right, here's chapter three.

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He was running.

He was running through a wood lit by moonlight filtering in through the trees. He did not know where he was running to, or what he was running from, all that he knew was that if he stopped, something cataclysmic would occur.

He arrived at the end of the thick forest. A white sand beach stretched out before him, sparkling strangely in the night. A breeze came up out of nowhere and brushed his bare back. "Run," it whispered to him.

He ran.

He ran across miles of sparking beach before arriving at the edge of a great prairie, the knee-high grass swaying in an unseen breeze.

"Run, run, run!" the wind whispered urgently.

He ran across the prairie. He ran through hill country when he came to it. He ran across deserts and tundras, plateaus and valleys, all the while accompanied by the wind urging him on. He never tired, nor did he ever stop.

Quite suddenly he arrived at the edge of a dazzling pond, calm and so clear that he could see straight to the bottom. His tempest guide swirled once around him, brushing his bared chest, before darting forward to dance in cat's-paws across the water.

The surface of the pond began to twist into a whirlpool, subtly and at the center at first but moving ever more swiftly towards the edges of the pond. The gust of air plunged itself into the center of the eddy.

He stood at the side of the pool staring completely entranced as the wind arose once more from the pool, this time surrounded by a stream of water.

Glittering slightly, the wind shot off into the sky, but the water remained suspended above the surface of the still churning bath below.

It was changing. Twisting and shifting to assume the form of a young woman with her back to him.

Dusty skin flowed out from the naiad to encase her watery form in cinnamon glory. Thick, dark hair fell in glistening waves to her hips and like he she was nude from the waist up. Her arms were folded in front of her body, sinuously concealing her breasts. Hanging onto her hips there was a sheer cloth that looked blue when looked at from one angle but appeared green at the other.

The water licked at her feet. She was perfectly suspended above the pool, as though some blessed ability gave her the gift of walking upon water.

She turned to face him.

He stretched one arm across the space between them, but it never seemed to be long enough to reach her.

Her arms dropped from her breasts and raised themselves high above her head. In one swift motion she had brought them down and he was knocked onto his back with the force of a charging beast. He looked up in time to see the woman glide across the surface of the water towards him. He braced his body for battle, but no such attack came.

There was no rage in her eyes, no sign that she would do him any harm in the least.

The woman stepped onto the shore. Her eyes never left his face.

The strange fabric of her sarong parted and slid up her thighs as she straddled him and sank down on her haunches on either side of him. She placed a pair of small, warm hands upon his broad chest.

She lowered her head and placed a burning kiss on the smooth skin between her hands. His head tipped back as a low guttural moan escaped his lips.

He had just placed his hand upon the smooth bare skin of her back and was rubbing it softly up and down when something changed.

The grass beneath them was rustling as though in a high wind, though there was no breeze to speak of. The water in the pond was lapping harder against the shore and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on instinct.

There was a rushing sound; the wind had returned.

Quite suddenly the woman stopped her ministrations and looked up past his head, as though she could see something in the glittering wind that he could not. Without so much as a word she rose and stepped back towards the water, arms held wide open to welcome the wind.

It swirled around her. The man gazed up in wonder at the sight of the lady in her half dressed state, sarong blowing about her legs and hair lifted by the breeze. Suddenly the wind began to change as well

Like the naiad appearing from the pool, now a man began to form from the air dancing about them.

He was of a slight build and pale complexion. Like the other two he wore only a pair of loose yellow pants and a long staff was carried in one hand. He looked only once at the man he had guided across the world before turning his attention on to the woman.

The air around them seemed to have grown warm.

The man of air extended his hand to the woman and she placed her own small fingers into his strong grip.

It had now grown quite hot.

She looked back at him one last time before setting foot back in the water. She vanished.

The other man, the one who had guided the first to the pool, spared only a second. "Run," he whispered. And then he too vanished in a glittering breath of wind.

The air around the remaining man was almost unbearably hot at this point and quite suddenly he understood why the second man had told him to run; there was a terrible, horrific screeching growing ever closer.

He turned in the direction of the path he had trod to arrive at the pond and saw, to his horror, a great column of fire flying at breathtaking speed towards him.

He tried to move, but it was as though his feet were cemented to the soil beneath them. A dark, familiar laugh filled his ears, underneath which he could hear the screams of a thousand people in pain. They screamed and screamed and…

And Zuko shot up in his bed. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, when the sounds of a commotion reached his ears.

It had been the screams that had awoken him because there were many anguished and angry yells penetrating the walls of his chamber, just as they had penetrated his dream.

Something wasn't right.

Faster than the arrow out of a YuuYan archer's bow, Zuko had leapt from his bed and, not ever bothering to cover his bare chest, sprinted out of his suite and followed the sounds of fighting up to the deck of his ship.

What he found there shocked him so much that he actually stood stock still in the doorway to the deck for several precious moments:

Somehow, in some inconceivable way, the girl had gotten loose and was wrecking havoc all across his ship.

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It had all worked perfectly.

And also much quicker than Katara could have hoped. After Zuko had left her a day and a half ago to stew in fear in her cell, she had worked tirelessly at digging through the wall of her prison until she could fit almost her entire fist through the rusted-out patch.

With the precision born of years of mental training, Katara had bended water up from the ocean below her into the cell and she twirled the liquid into a watersnake, the better to focus her concentration, as she sometimes did when teaching Aang became especially vexing.

Hoping to all the gods that the guard outside her door would not hear her, Katara bended the water into a fine stream and feed it into the lock of the manacles around her wrists and froze the water with one quick blast of will. The lock shattered and Katara caught her former bonds just before they hit the floor and alerted her sentinel as to her doings. She performed this trick on the chains about her ankles and padded silently across to the door on the other side of which her first real obstacle stood on guard.

Yes, there had only been one way to go about it…or so Katara had kept telling herself as she had performed the deed. She had bended the water between the gap at the bottom of the door and, placing her hands on her side of the door the better to guide her weapon, she slid the water up the opposite side of the door. Katara could feel the heat emanating from her guard's body through the metal as he leaded against it in the other side. He still had not noticed the water clinging to the door just outside of his range of touch.

Katara closed her mind down as she had learned to do under Pakku's tutelage when they had been at the north Pole together; in this way, Pakku had said, Katara would become a calmer warrior and would not balk when the time came for her to perform an particularly unappealing task. She closed her mind, wiping it clear of any intruding thought and centered her attention entirely upon the guard's body heat through the door.

Katara flicked the water out to wrap around the guard's face and before she could tell herself to stop, had plunged the salty liquid down the man's throat. He gagged wetly. She controlled every movement blindly, never once faltering and hating herself more every moment.

Within seconds the man's hefty body had collapsed and Katara mentally bended the water out of the man's lungs. She recalled the water to her and performed the same lock-freezing trick she had used on her chains to open her cell door and was gone in a flash, sparing only a brief glance for her fallen guard. Katara had not intended to kill the man and most likely he was only stunned from such sudden, harsh treatment, but if Katara had inadvertently ended his life, she did not know how she would ever be able to live with herself. It did not matter that he was of the Fire Nation; Katara simply did not believe in unnecessary violence. Killing was completely against her moral code.

She had traveled like a shadow through the massive ship. Only once, when an elderly man of substantial girth had exited a chamber off of the main hallway, had Katara had to stop, gliding quickly into a small alcove off of the corridor. But as it turned out, the old man was a blessing in disguise. He had appeared to be speaking to someone still inside the room.

"Alright Lieutenant Ji, I will let the quartermaster know. You should get some sleep, even Prince Zuko has gone to bed; it is past midnight you know."

Whoever Lieutenant Ji was spoke from inside the room. "Thank you General, I will. I just want to finish this letter to San and Selluma."

"Oh, how nice! Tell me before you send it, I want to attach a message to Irina."

"Of course." The unseen man paused. "Um…General…I still can not thank you enough for all that you have done for-"

The old man held up a hand. "It was no problem at all Ji. I dare say Irina enjoys having them, little joys like them truly make her life worth living. She told my so herself."

"Thank you General."

"Not at all. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to alert the quartermaster about the change in the air pressure before I turn in. I do hope that if a storm is coming we can avoid it."

"As do I. Goodnight General."

"Goodnight Lieutenant."

And the man had sent off again, unaware that a blue phantom shadowed his every moment as he lead her up to the deck, and freedom.

All Katara had planned to do once out on the deck of the war galley was to simply leap overboard under cover of darkness and swim to the nearest shore. However, she had not counted on the deck to be crawling with soldiers. Or that they would be so damned observant.

Just as she had made the dash from the doorway the old man had unwittingly led her to, a voice had shouted out the three words that made her blood stop in her veins: "Hey! What's that?"

"Oh no!" She had whispered. She was almost at the railing, could she make it?

"It's the prisoner, she's escaping!"

"Sound the alarm!"

"General! The woman is escaping!"

Out of the shadows covering the ship emerged half a dozen figures garbed in the uniforms of Fire Nation soldiers, and at the front of the group was the very same old man that had led Katara up from the bowels of his ship. Every single hand of the soldiers circling around the waterbender was lit in flames and the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. The old man spoke.

"Listen to me young lady, none of want to hurt you, we simply ask that you calmly come away from the side of the ship and let us put you back into custody. No one needs to get hurt."

Suddenly another solider came running out from the same door Katara had escaped from and sprinted up to the group, shouting, "Han! It's Han. He was guarding her and now he lies as though dead outside her cell. She has killed him!"

"No!" Katara shouted in disbelieving protest.

The firebender to her left visibly stiffened. "What? Han is dead?" he turned back to Katara. "You killed my brother! I will kill you murderous whore!"

And he rushed her. Pandemonium was not far behind. People were shouting, "Lee, no!" "Don't Lee, we need her!" "Someone get her back in chains!" "Stop him!"

In the meantime Katara was dealing with her attacker in the only way she knew how: by bending for her life. She had backed up to the railing and instead of jumping into the ocean as she had originally planned, knowing full well that her foes would simply pursue her, Katara bended a great stream of water up from the sea far below and whipped it at her assailant, finding a strange pleasure in throwing the man back several feet. But he had soon leapt back to his feet and was hurling ball after ball of fire at her.

Katara pulled the water back before her body and created a wall around herself that she quickly froze until there was ice whichever way she looked. This was only a temporary solution however, for now not only the man called Lee was assaulting her with blasts of fire, but now several other men had joined in to remove her from her icy refuge. Their element shimmered beautifully against the swiftly melting walls as the seconds passed and Katara's mind raced for a solution to get herself off of the ship.

She wiled the water to melt back into her hands and, catching the fire benders off guard, whipped the liquid in a wide arc, knocking back at least three soldiers. Men ran all around them, some shouting for more men, yelling for prince Zuko to come up on deck, calling for chains and irons to be brought.

Katara pulled more water from the ocean and formed a great globe around her body, which she pushed outwards with tremendous speed to clear the area around her free of attackers. Men went in every direction, some under their own steam in attempts to get away from the water-sphere, others being engulfed by the force and thrown onto the floor and railings of the ship.

"That is enough!"

Katara dropped her watery shields and looked up to see the man all called General striding through the fallen bodies of his men. A controlled fury sparkled in his eyes, matching the flames that sparkled and cracked around his hands.

His voice echoed across the dark water as he shouted to her, "You will do no more harm to these men. Now, I command you, surrender and you will not have to feel the wrath of the Fire Nation!"

Katara's response was to form a massive oval of water and thrust it at the man. Before he could react, Katara's shield had pinned him to the wall of the ship's tower and frozen to keep him in place.

Immediately three more soldiers came running from every direction and the General was swiftly breaking through his arctic bonds.

A great roar filled all their ears, so great that every single person on the deck stopped in their tracks and looked to the source of the sound. It was he, Zuko, come at last to battle for his ship.

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Zuko moved with an unimaginable speed towards the woman, eyes darting left and right to take in his crew and uncle incapacitated by the hellion, and his rage grew.

Instantly fire flew from his hands and the waterbender screamed and raised a sheet of ice before her. Zuko pounded upon the icy wall with blasts of fire and in seconds he had demolished it.

Zuko sprinted across the last few feet until there was barely a foot between him and his adversary. They exchanged blows faster than the eye could see, steam rising in a haze around them from where their two elements met.

Katara leapt back to give herself room to move and bended her water into a watersnake which she sent hurtling directly at Zuko's face, but the firebender in response sprang into a back flip and dodged the serpent entirely. Cheers rose up from the assembled soldiers watching the fight as their prince jumped to his feet again.

The pair circled each other, glaring daggers into the other's eyes. Zuko's still unclothed chest rose and fell rapidly in time to the swift beating of his heart and Katara's long, loose hair whipped about her face in the night's wind.

With a yell, Katara formed ice spike after ice spike and hurled them for all she was worth at the prince. He skillfully dodged most of them, but the last spike landed true, cutting a long but shallow gash across his exposed chest. A small trickle of blood seeped out of the wound and glistened in the moonlight.

That was the last straw.

He leaned his head backwards, back arched and arms taut, and Zuko roared once more, this time shooting flames straight into the night sky from his mouth. A great pillar of fire flew into the heavens and painted the stars in crimson light.

This sight was so shocking and at the same time so incredibly beautiful that Katara could not help but gaze up at the sky in wonder. Those few crucial moments would prove to be her downfall.

As the waterbender stood mesmerized, Zuko launched himself at her and had the woman pinned beneath him in two seconds. She struggled but Zuko only pinned her wrists above her head with one hand while the other pressed her head hard against the metal deck.

He hissed in her face, for only her to hear, "That is the last time I underestimate you peasant. These years have forged you into a master, but never again will you harm me or my crew."

Zuko stood, pulling Katara roughly to her feet as he went and, the cheers and whistles of his crew filling his ears, the prince flung Katara over his shoulder and carried her below decks. Iroh and Zuko's lieutenant trotted right behind him, Iroh with one hand clamped around Katara's own to keep her from bending.

Zuko barked out, "Ji, sweep the ship for injured and alert the infirmary that these men get the best possible care. Then go down to her old cell and figure out how in the name of Agni she escaped!"

The man Katara took to be Lieutenant Ji murmured, "Yes my lord" and scurried off to his assigned tasks.

"Her old cell, Zuko?" the old man said, hurrying to keep up with his nephew and still keep a solid hold on Katara's hands while she glared at him from her spot over the prince's broad shoulder.

"Yes uncle. Obviously we can't leave her to her own devices. She will be kept in the room attached to my suite. That room had never been good for much of anything, we might as well use it as a prison." Katara could feel how tightly wound the man's body was and with the return of her equanimity came the realization that in the three years she had been running from Zuko, she had never seen him quite so angry as he was now.

And could she blame him? Katara had just single handedly escaped from and vanquished Zuko's entire crew. If the prince himself hadn't turned up, Katara's freedom had been almost assured. Tui damn him.

Katara could hear a door being thrust open that Zuko was carried her through a small but richly furnished study, followed by what appeared to be a bedroom. With a start Katara realized that this was Zuko's chamber.

"You will be kept in here from now on peasant" Zuko said, and Katara heard another door being opened and before she knew what was happening, Zuko had tossed the waterbender off of his shoulder and she landed quite hard on her ass on the floor of yet another metal room. Groaning, Katara moved onto her knees to face the door, but Zuko and his uncle had shut the heavy iron shield and the younger man was staring in at her through a small hatch in the top of the door.

"Listen ands listen good woman. My patience had just about run out with you. From this moment on you will be kept in this room. You will see no one, you will speak to no one, and never again will you get the chance to hurt one of my men."

"I didn't mean to-"

"Shut up! You have done immeasurable damage to some of my finest and most loyal warriors. You won't get that chance again. Understand what I say next: the only entrance to this room is through my own personal chambers. If you want to get through them, you have to get through me and I will not hesitate to kill you if it means keeping you from leaving these rooms. Now, I am going to leave you to think over what I have said while I see if any of my men have been crippled by you."

"I swear to the moon spirit that I didn't mean-"

But Zuko wouldn't listen to her desperate pleas. He simply slammed shut the small hatch and stalked off, Iroh hot on his heels.

"Zuko!" The old man hissed in disbelief. "Would you really kill that poor girl?"

Zuko stopped and turned to face his one true friend. Some of the tension relaxed out of his features now that he was no longer yelling at the source of all of his vexation.

"No…but she doesn't know that."

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The soldier Lee kneeled in the infirmary beside the unmoving form of his brother Han, one limp hand clutched in both of his big ones. How would Lee explain this to their mother? He was the elder brother; Lee should have been looking after Han. He had promised their mother he would.

Lee could well remember that day on the docks of Sozen before the brothers had set off with Prince Zuko when his mother had pulled him away from the place where Han had stood with his lady Akiko as she sobbed quietly into his shoulder, their little girl clinging to her mother's skirts with one hand and her father's armor with the other. Lee himself had never married, but he loved to spend his leave-time spoiling his only niece. Their mother had torn herself and Lee away and whispered in her elder son's ear, "Promise me you will look out for your brother out there Lee. You know he is not as strong as you, he is not meant for a soldier's life, please keep him from danger."

"I promise mama."

"You are such a good boy. Both my sons are good boys." His mother had beamed up at him. "Everyday I go to the market I am able to hold my head up high in pride, for all of the other woman know I have two bright, brave sons who would die for their country. If only your father could see you now."

Lee had smoothed his mother's graying hair out of her face and stood with her as they gazed at their brother and son with his young family.

"Akiko is with child again." His mother said suddenly.

"Yes?" Han had smiled at this unexpected but happy news.

"Yes. She is telling him now," Lee's mother said as they watched Han's mouth drop in astonishment before he laughed and scooped his wife and daughter up in his arms. "Please Lee, take good care of him."

"Never fear mama, I will protect him."

I will protect him. Those words echoed mockingly in Lee's memory as he stared unseeingly at his younger brother, the one who as a small, chubby child had chased after Lee and his friends begging to be allowed to play too. As young teenagers they had competed for the attention and approval of their mother and as older teenagers they had competed for the affections of the same girl; the beautiful, gentle Akiko who would come to be Han's wife, with Lee's happy, resigned blessing. Han had enlisted in the national army simply to please Lee, to prove that he could be just as much of a man as the brother he so idolized.

Lee swore to himself that he would see the water nation bitch hang for what she had done to his only brother.

Lee's fellows clustered around him in respectful silence, wanting to ease their friend's grief in some way but not knowing how.

Abruptly, a tremor passed through the crowd and the men parted to allow their prince to enter the infirmary and move silently among his men.

Zuko stood above Lee, also looking down upon the inert figure on the infirmary cot, wondering just how Katara had managed what she had through three inches of solid iron. He must never underestimate her again.

"Is he…is he still alive?" Zuko asked in a quite voice to whoever would answer. The resident physician stepped forward out of the crowd.

"For the moment, yes my lord, Han still lives, but he has suffered much damage to his lungs and as you can see he will not wake from this strange sleep. We have tried everything." The man finished regretfully.

"Keep trying." Lee spoke in a dead voice.

"Of course." The physician said and retreated into the safety of the crowd behind him: the air was ripe with tension and no man wished to be caught in the crossfire.

Zuko hesitated, and then placed one hand awkwardly on Lee's shoulder. "How badly wounded were the others?"

Once again the ship's doctor answered. "Superficial wounds at best my lord. Udo has a broken collarbone and I still need to examine your uncle to make sure the ice did no damage to his skin, but there is nothing worse than that. Han is our chief concern."

Zuko squeezed Lee's shoulder briefly as he had seen Ji do for men who had received bad news from home. It was the only way he really knew to comfort people, so deprived were his experiences in comforting people. "Lee…is there…uh…anything I can do?"

The older man rose slowly to his feet and turned a grief stricken face upon his prince. But what startled Zuko was not the expression of such raw pain, but the fury burning in Lee's eyes.

He spoke. "My brother and I have not seen our home for four years! In that time our mother has taken ill three times and walked the edge of death when fever consumed her body ten months ago. My brother has not laid eyes on his wife since the day we set out with you. His daughter is almost seven and might not recognize him anymore. He has a child he has never even seen! A son! His wife told him she was with child the day we left and still my brother has not held his son in his arms. For four years we have never questioned your plan, but tonight was the last straw! My lord, I hold no rancor with you; I am sworn to you and will never betray your cause, but that demon woman you brought aboard must pay for he crimes against my brother. I will see her blood coat the decks of this ship!"

A cry rose up from the other men in agreement and Zuko could sense that a revolt could quite easily be brewing if he did not take action quickly.

Zuko turned back the larger group and raised his voice. " Hear me men! I take full responsibility for the events of tonight. Because of my own pride, I allowed myself to forget that this woman is a waterbending Master. But we will undermine her skills no longer; she is under my personal guard at every moment, she will lead us to the avatar in one way or another and when we have the avatar in our custody, we will return to our rightful places of honor in the Fire Nation."

Lee spoke, "That is not good enough! If my brother dies on this ship, I want to see her pay for her crimes."

Zuko looked his usually levelheaded soldier square in the eye, "In time, she will pay for her wrongs."

"How!"

"It has not yet been decided. There will be no more shouting this night. I want you all to try to get some sleep and be ready for whatever tomorrow brings. I promise you, the woman will never again be a problem."

Lee looked pacified, for the moment at least, and the other men were already allowing their better sense to return and remove themselves from the infirmary to sleep. Predictably, Lee sank back down beside his brother and everyone knew that the unfaltering man would leave his brother's side only when the Han's body was cold.

Zuko turned and walked quietly out of the long room. As he passed his uncle, Iroh cast him an appraising, slightly approving look, as though he was very much pleased with the way his nephew had handled his crew before going over to comfort Lee.

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In her latest cell, Katara was pacing from side to side, gone almost crazy in the new space. True, it was larger than her old cell, and now that she was no longer as close to the boiler room the temperature was slightly more bearable, but the room was completely devoid of any windows. Waterbenders were not meant to be without windows! Katara's people loved being able to look up at any time and see birds soaring through the sky or, more importantly, gaze endlessly at the moon, their patron goddess.

She pushed her tangled hair out of her face and moved to the nearest wall, placing her hands upon the iron in a desperate attempt to feel for any source of water on the other side. Bu there was nothing. Katara practically ran from wall to wall, running her hands across the walls in vain, feeling for water that just could not be found in the center of a vast ship. Only once did Katara's hopes rise. She had just felt that familiar tug that meant water was near, but the more she concentrated on it, the more she realized that the supply was inside the ship and quite small, like the amount needed to fill a bath. Was she next to a bathing chamber perhaps?

Whatever the floor plan, Katara swiftly realized that she was truly at the mercy of the Fire Nation. She had no weapons and on the other side of the room's only door there was a man who would not hesitate to kill her.

His parting words haunted her, but not so much as those of the soldier who had first attacked her. He had screamed for her death, that she had murdered his brother. It had never been her intention to do so, and yet here she was, held hostage and accused of murder.

Despite the heat of her surroundings a terrible chill swept up her body. Katara shivered uncontrollably and her belly churned in self-hating nausea. She slid down the wall to sit huddled against the floor. Her clothes were in tatters and her hair fell like a curtain in front of her face.

Murder.

The word was like a stain upon her soul and no matter how purely she lived her life from this moment on, the blood of an innocent man would forever be on her hands.

The edged of her vision were growing black. She blinked rapidly but that only made the spots worse. Her breath came quickly and before Katara could brace herself, she slumped down the rest of the way until she lay, semiconscious, on the warm metal.

Her last words for the night slipped from her lips just before exhaustion and trepidation wore her body into sleep, "Aang, I'm scared."

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On the other side of Katara's door Zuko knelt next to the single lamp still burning in his chamber and nursed the wound dealt to him by the waterbender. His fingers moved gingerly over the cut which, though shallow, still stung considerably due to the jaggedness of the ice spike that had cut him.

The bleeding had long since stopped and as Zuko applied a thin layer of healing salve, he was reminded of his mother and the many times Ursa had patched her son up after a rather disastrous training session. Azula would laugh but the Fire Lady had simply kissed her son on the cheek and told him not to listen to his sister. Her touch was always so gentle and not for the first time since his mother had vanished from his life, Zuko again longed for the gentle touch of a woman.

Not in a motherly sense, no; Irina, whenever he saw her, retained the same tender firmness of Ursa. If he was truthful with himself, what Zuko really wanted was the touch of a woman who both desired him and cared for him. A woman who would warm his bed and welcome him into hers late at night when he was tired and merely wished to rest in her embrace. But where would a banished prince ever find such a woman?

After Zuko had put away the last of his bandages, he made his way tiredly back to his bed. Just as he was about to crawl back under the covers for a few hours much needed sleep he caught sigh of something small on the floor next to the door behind which his captive now presumably slept.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Zuko dragged his fatigued body through the gloom of his room and bent to pick up what turned out to be a scrap of cloth. Upon closer inspection, Zuko realized that the scrap of soft blue cloth in hand belong to Katara's robe. It must have ripped during their battle and fallen in his berth when he carried her through.

Subconsciously it seemed his fingers had been caressing the soft material and, unbidden, an image of a woman clad only in a skirt much like the cloth in his hands levitating over a beautiful pool came to his mind.

A sharp stab of lust shivered through his body and Zuko wondered once again what it would be like to bed the waterbender. She was undeniably beautiful, with the softest skin Zuko had ever seen outside of a Fire Nation lady and eyes that seemed to now more than they should. Yes, Katara was exquisite, it was true…and mist likely his uncle had been correct and she was sharing the bed of the Avatar. Zuko would never force himself on another man's woman, and in truth, what sensible woman would accept the attentions of a man who had been hunting her and her lover for almost three years?

His shoulders slumped in tiredness; this was no time to pity himself. Zuko needed sleep and just as he had told his men, tomorrow would bring a clearer light.

The prince crawled back into his bed, the bedclothes still disheveled from his midnight flight, and lay on his back gazing up at the ceiling, fingers still caressing the piece of the waterbender's robes as a child would a favorite blanket and waited for sleep to come.

However sleep eluded the prince for almost an hour. His mind was too full of conflicting images: Katara bathing in the glade the day he had captured her, Iroh pinned to the wall of the ship by a great sheet of ice, an enraged but beautiful woman in chains cursing his name, Han lying motionless in the infirmary.

It was this last image that stiffened Zuko's resolve and he sat up swiftly in bed. The cloth lay smooth and harmless in his palm.

Zuko stared hard at the piece of her robe as he allowed flames to engulf his hand and the cloth ignited. Zuko stared at the flames for the longest time until nothing was left in his hand but ashes.

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Ok, so I took too long, whatever, I'm in a great mood now, though I don't know why because it is way too hot were I am now and my brother brought over his friend so I had to run upstairs and put on a bra, which I hate but I am happy nonetheless because…YEAH! I UPDATED!.

Back to business: the constant references to Irina will make sense in a few chapters, but for the moment I want to keep her identity a secret. The next chapter will probably be pretty short and updated quickly so don't give up on me! Also, many of you have been wondering weather or not Katara and Aang are lovers and to answer your question…well, your just gonna have to wait, aren't you?

Hmmm, I hear thunder, maybe it will rain soon. God I hope so. If I were alone I would totally go dance half naked in the rain. Goddammit, why did my parents have to be home today! God dammed national holiday.