A/N: I KNOW that I'm the most inconsistent updater EVER. I'm so sorry. I've had the first half of this chapter in my computer for several weeks now, and I noticed there really was no plot whatsoever. So, in this part, that changes. Sorry if it seems sudden or abrupt. And though Tao is extremely loyal and will do anything to protect the interests of his Nation, please keep in mind that he is a good person.

Disclaimer: Avatar NOT MINE. Plot NONEXISTANT, BUT MINE. OCs BAD (Well, I guess so...). So, really, OCs MINE.

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Imprisonment

Part Five:
Trusting, Rebelling

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Days pass. The ostrich horses sip water from the sparse puddles in the plains and desert. The red-tailed hawks in the sky soar gratefully, dancing through thin cirrus clouds, so whippy and white they are like falling snow. The browning grasses and wild shrubs that spring up around the prison’s walls grow in the late summer sunlight. The sun rises at dawn and sets at dusk. Yue flies cheerily into the night sky, playing with the stars, a spirit at peace now that her loved one is finally with her.

Life goes on.

Katara’s does not.

She feels as though time likes to single her out and throw her into the thin space between the Spirit and Mortal worlds, where the minutes pass so slowly so that an hour could easily be an entire lifetime. Katara tries and fails to live regularly, to make plans for after all this is over and when I go back to living in the South Pole. Her ways are set in stone here. For, though it has been only a week, she has been here her entire life.

The naïve, happy-go-lucky girl who thought herself mature is a different life, a younger life that ended so cruelly and strangely at fourteen.

The confident Master Waterbender who acted as Sifu to the Avatar is also a different life, an exhilarating life that was terminated at Summer’s End, a life that was harsh but not nearly as harsh as her life now.

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She gathers the food aimlessly on a tray, thanking Tao. It is his shift now for the kitchen; he will be preparing dinner later tonight, but he has had Zuko’s food ready for a good portion of an hour. Katara mutters quietly that she won’t be joining Tao and the others for dinner tonight because she has other business to attend to.

Tao smiles wearily at her. “Lots of correspondence with the Earth King lately, right? There’ve been enough messenger hawks here in the past three days to start a rookery,” Tao jokes. It is a feeble attempt, however, and Katara stares past him with hollow eyes.

“Yes,” she explains abruptly. “The Earth King is concerned for my Tribe and I. Diplomatic nonsense that would bore you if you had to hear it. Don’t worry about me. Thank you for the food,” she says shortly, indicating the extra rice bowl on the tray.

Katara turns to leave, balancing the cold metal tray on one hand while she opens an equally cold metal door.

Tao’s voice cuts through her focus like a cold metal blade: unexpected and unwanted. “Forgive my prying, but you’re hiding something, Miss Katara, and I don’t like it. What is going on with the prisoner? Why are you really here?”

Katara stiffens, her shoulders tense and a strong sense of anger surges through her.

“As the most elite Earthbender and head guard of this prison, I urge you to stop and answer my questions. Though technically I can’t force you to reveal any of your personal business,”—Katara bites her lip, keeping silent—“I am entitled to inquire about the state of the prisoner that I am responsible for. So, Miss, what will it be?”

Tao’s tone reveals the options that he does not speak: she may come quietly and obediently, or he will force it out of her.

Katara brings her head down, her long hair loops dangling past her chin, brushing her jaw gently. She loosens the tray of food from her grasp, and it clatters to the floor, the wooden rice bowls toppling over and spewing their contents across a cold metal floor. Speckled with white, the normally dark floor appears strangely ominous, out of place, so horribly hard that her skull might crack should she be pinned down and should her head collide with the floor as hard as the food tray. The water basin is on the other side of the room, behind Tao; Tao is a strong, tall man with a sword hanging at his side.

She will comply.

She must comply.

Stiffly, daintily, she steps over the toppled tray of now-spoiled food. She stares at Tao. Waiting.

“What will it be?” Katara echoes, rolling the words off her tongue in a contemptuous, aggressive way that is so unlike her and like her all at once. She knows she does not have the power in this situation, nor can she fight. So she revels in what little she can gain over Tao—she hates being powerless, having a situation out of her control, like the last battle where she just couldn’t save Toph and Sokka as they were slaughtered before her eyes. Brother and sister, dead, murdered brutally. And Aang—she might’ve had a chance, but she had lost her oasis water, and there is simply no bringing the dead back to life.

“The prisoner,” Tao says stonily. Katara knows he doesn’t want to do this to her, but he has to do his job. Tao is not an evil man, but he is just concerned for his nation. Katara knows this, and it makes her even more angered.

“Why are you here? What are you doing to the prisoner? A week ago he was going to starve to death, and now he is eating with the appetite of a man twice his age and size. Why is that?”

“I came because I had no one left,” Katara states quietly.

“Oh? And what of your Master and friends from the North? Are they not family to you as well? And what of Toph Bei Fong’s parents? And the Earth King? And your Tribe?”

The mention of each person still alive is a strike to her heart, a needle tearing a tiny cut and spouting unseen blood. She hadn’t wanted to trouble them. She wanted her family. She wanted her brothers and sister: Aang and Sokka and Toph. She was stupid, though, because she realizes now that others care for her besides those she wishes were still alive.

“My family!” Katara shouts at him, caught up in the moment and in her anguish and her anger. “They’re all dead except for him.”

Tao shakes his head sorrowfully. “You’re suffering from shock, Miss Katara. You know that Fire Nation scum is not your family—your family is in the South. Let things be, Miss. It would be better if he died.”

“How can you say that? How can you honestly think that an innocent person should die just because he can’t choose his parents?”

“He can’t live,” Tao says solemnly.

“He can’t die,” Katara counters.

“Just what exactly,” Tao says slowly, accentuating each word as if he’s speaking to a five-year-old, “is he to you?”

Truth be told, Zuko and she had grown closer in a way that she had never expected. They had bonded through loss, and slowly, ever so slowly, she made progress with him. Each word spoken revealed more; each time they sat together, she penetrated through his defensive walls a bit more; each conversation lengthened over time until he would speak to her as he would his uncle. And Katara had been fascinated. She felt so sorry for him, and wanted to help him. Because, in the end, Zuko had been following his heart and, while he had still betrayed her, Katara understands that he cannot disobey his own heart’s demands.

“I don’t have to answer that question,” Katara says angrily.

“It is not a matter of being required to do something, Miss Katara; you simply must. The Earth Kingdom cannot afford more betrayal, and it is obvious that you are very mentally unstable.”

She sees the pity in Tao’s eyes, and knows he really thinks she is crazy.

Well, maybe she is crazy.

She doesn’t care, though.

“I can’t let you kill him.”

“It’s a terrible duty, but it is mine nonetheless.”

“And it always has been?”

“Always.”

After that, she does not hesitate: the basin-shaped block of ice slams into Tao’s head from behind, and he collapses on the floor in a sickening heap.

There is no turning back now.