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“Why are you crying?”
Katara sniffed, sharply, something deep and cold plunging into her stomach. She’d thought she was safe here, curled up in a little nook deep within the labyrinthine palace, far enough from anywhere the Fire Princess might have found her. And yet, looking up, she found Azula standing over her with hands on her hips.
She sniffed back the rest of her tears as best she could. Like she’d been told, gently but firmly, by Mom on the day the raiders had come. On the day she’d been taken, not as a bender, but merely as collateral, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and angering the wrong people. Try not to cry, and whatever you do, no matter what, don’t let them know you can bend.
“I- I wasn’t!” she stammered quickly. But Azula clearly wasn’t having it; something sparked in her golden eyes, and one foot tapped. Eight years old, and she was already smarter than most anyone else in this place.
“You were!” she retorted, peering down. “Don’t lie to me!”
Katara flinched back at that; she didn’t know what to say, not really, and her eyes were still stinging. There was a delicate balance to surviving here, even she knew that, despite her age, and the ever-present risk of upsetting it kept that cold feeling deep inside. But then Azula shifted back, her shape loosening to no longer loom, and she spoke again. “You’re scared.”
Gingerly, Katara gave a nod; that, at least, she could probably admit. Azula seemed to like it when people were afraid of her. Except now, looking up, that wasn’t what Katara found in those golden eyes. What she found was something, just maybe, softer.
“I’m not mad at you,” she mumbled, her own gaze turning away. “Well, I am, but not… like that.” She turned, and then fell down, plopping herself to sit beside the other girl on the step. “People aren’t supposed to hide things from me, that’s what Dad says, but everyone does, even Mom.”
Her eyes narrowed, something hurt in her words. “Especially Mom.” Her gaze stayed on the far wall, away from the still-sniffling girl beside her. “You were brought here to be my companion, so you can’t start doing it too, you-”
“I miss my home.”
Azula blinked at that, then rolled over, eyes widening as they met Katara’s. Quietly, the other girl cursed her impulses; no doubt she’d just upset that delicate balance, daring to trust that that hurt in the other girl’s voice was honest. But the question that followed, despite her fears, was just as real.
“Why?” Azula asked quietly; there was none of the mirth that Katara had come to expect in her voice, as if she was genuinely stumped. “Isn’t it so much better here, in the palace? I thought the Water Tribe lived in some tiny little village with nothing but snow. Nothing to do, nothing to see…?”
“I liked it,” Katara admitted, taking a shaking breath against the fear in her chest and choosing to be honest. “It was quiet, and I miss the snow. It’s like…” for a moment she reached for a metaphor, watching those golden eyes all the while; the interest never broke. “Imagine if someone said you could go and live in an even bigger palace-”
“I would go,” Azula declared. The other girl forced herself to go on anyway.
“But if you couldn’t bring anything from here, or talk to anyone you knew ever again. And you were given loads of food, and new clothes, but the clothes were uncomfortable and weird and you didn’t know how to eat any of the food. And you couldn’t tell anyone about your old home, or the people you knew, and you felt like everyone wanted you to forget about them and be someone else…”
She hadn’t realised she’d started crying again until she felt the warmth on her cheeks. But then her eyes were stinging, and Azula was a blur, and oh, oh no, that blur was shifting closer. But instead of the singe of fire, or some kind of rebuttal, all she got was a single hand, wrapped in royal finery and extended gingerly.
“I get it,” Azula said quickly; blinking away her tears, Katara could see the other girl was looking away, knees drawn up and in. “I wouldn’t go if I had to leave you behind.” There was a genuine vulnerability there, one Katara had once been sure didn’t even exist, and it made something else sting next to the homesickness in her chest. But the princess wasn’t done. “And if you are meant to be my companion, then you have to listen to me when I need to talk about something…
“So I have to listen to you, too. So if you do want to talk about the South Pole, you tell me, got it?" She looked over, something set in her eyes as if what she’d just said was something profound. To Katara, it wasn’t; that was just how friendships were meant to be, but…
Was this a friendship? It hadn’t started as one, and there was an undeniable risk in opening up at all to the daughter of the man who had enslaved her in all but name. And Azula’s definition was definitely stilted and transactional. But Katara was smart enough to see the earnestness there, awkward though it was, and to understand that Azula was coming at this from the perspectives she’d been taught by a father who was only using her and a mother who didn’t love her. Did that justify taking that risk?
Gingerly, she took the princess’ hand. “O-okay.” She took a deep breath, no longer minding the stinging in her eyes. “Thanks, Azula.”
A week later, the Fire Princess returned with a parcel, wrapped in brown paper. And after sunset, huddled up in her quarters, she pressed it into Katara’s hands, and asked her to open it. And when she did, the girl from the South Pole cried softly, and didn’t try to hide the tears for the first time since she’d been brought to Caldera.
“I told my father we needed it for a game,” Azula explained, as Katara’s jittering fingers touched faded blue fabric. “That you needed to look the part for when I beat you. Mom and Zuzu were horrified, of course,” there was the tiniest bitter curl in her voice there, but she quickly swallowed it. “But Dad agreed with me, and didn’t notice the lie, so I got what I wanted. That’s what matters.”
“Where did it come from?” came out softly as Katara lifted the fabric, taking every ounce of care. The firelight glinted off aged white fur and darker blue banding, and off the tears still falling softly. “How?”
“Dad had it taken from one of the city museums,” Azula explained, leaning back against the bedpost. “It’s probably older than you, way older, from one of the earlier raids. I don’t know what happened to its previous owner.” Her voice quieted at that admission, mirth fading; it wasn’t an apology, or an excuse, but it was something other than dismissal and that had to count for something. “But it’s yours now, as long as you want it.”
“I…” And for a moment, swallowing hard, Katara couldn’t find the words. As she set the fabric, the coat, a remnant of her culture she was worried she’d never see again, her throat burned and it was almost all too much.
It was too large for her, sized for a girl twice her age or thereabouts. And she couldn’t safely wear it anyway, not here, in this place of fire. And it had been taken, snatched like she had been, from someone who probably didn’t survive the raids. And yet to a child of just shy of nine summers, cut off from everything she’d ever known, it was a lifeline.
She lunged forwards before she even knew what she was doing, and suddenly culture and class and power didn’t matter anymore. Suddenly her arms were tight around a girl whose people and family and nature she should have hated, and all she could say, feeling Azula tense sharply, before settling into the unfamiliar affection, was a tiny, tearful “thanks”.
And when they fell apart, and the small smile on Azula’s face was as genuine as the surprise in her eyes, all unfamiliar feelings, for the first time, Katara felt like she could survive this. Because she wasn’t surviving it alone.