ShakespeareActressVamp:

Hey peoples!

I know last year I did the worst thing possiable for a story I hardly updated. I hate when people do that with stories I am reading and I hate that I did it to ya'll last year. I am going to make sure that doesn't happen this year. (It's one of my new years resolutions. But, you have to understand the past two years my life has been like hell and there doesn't seem to be a change about that coming up any time soon, but I will just have to trug along. I am going to try to be posting at least once a month, but do understand I have a life. I have classes and shows. Please make sure to review and if there is something you really want to talk to me about feel free to send me a message here.

But thanks to all of you who have stuck around this long with a special thanks to ML7. Now on to the story.

Previously:

Zuko seemed to be talking to someone outside the door…I could not see who or hear what he was saying though. After a few seconds he closed and locked the door again. Then he turned and with another sign got a chair and brought it in front of where I was standing in my defensive position and sat down looking at me.

Then he said "All right Katara I have a proposition for you…"

Now:

(Katara's POV)

All I could do was stare at him with big eyes.

"I am going to be frank with you Katara." Zuko took a deep breath, "Your brother is suppose to be executed tonight with all the other males that were found here."

At that news I fell to the floor with tears streaming down my face. NO! NOT MY BROTHER! But, before I could actually hit the ground Zuko managed to caught me in his arms and slowly lowered me to the floor. I gave into the temptation to bury my face in his chest and sob. Through all my tears I could a whiff of Zuko's comforting, natural sent, burnt cedar.

But after I had calmed down I heard Zuko saying, "No, no Katara, stop crying. I want to stop your brother's execution."

At that new my tears stopped and my face snapped back to look Zuko in the eye. Zuko was looking at me with such a worried expression, almost as if he thought he had broken me. But I really couldn't think about that right now, I had to plead for Soka's life. "Please save him! Please, I will do ANYTHING for his life to be spared."

After I said that Zuko pulled me into the chair he had been sitting in before and he stared pacing. "I am not sure how I will save him, yet." He said while he glanced at me to see my reaction, I for my part kept my face blank. With a sigh he plowed on. "But I WILL find a way to save him…IF you do something for me."

When that came out of his mouth I became wary of him. What could he want from me? Would he order me to love him? To shudder serve him? Zuko apparently saw my shudder, because he was instantly on his knees in front of me, rubbing the bottom of my legs in a comforting manner. "It will be fine Katara. I promise the tea is not that bad."

When he had finished talking I had no idea what he was talking about. Zuko must have censed that or there was a puzzled look on my face, because he asked me what I shuddered about.

I looked down at my lap before I answered, "I was thinking that you might force me to-serve you in exchange for my brothers safety…"