so choose your last words, this is the last time
'cause you and I, we were born to die

~lana del rey

Two figures stood on the field of grass facing one another, the green blades reached up to their ankles and swayed wherever the wind blew them, surrounded by a whole forest of trees the two looked to be caged by nature itself until one defeated the other. Glowering golden eyes narrowed tightly, the left eye seeming to be in constant ire from the ghastly scar that afflicted that side of his face, his jaw locked hard and teeth clenching behind sealed lips in barely contained rage. Opposite him were a pair of usually soothing blues that like the ocean's waves could bring inner peace to the most vile of characters, this time however they met the golden irises with an angry glare of their own, standing her ground she kept a defiant posture while facing him yet relaxed at the same time, much alike her element she was ready for an attack and even more so ready to counter-attack. Him donning ragged, old, dark green Earth Kingdom clothes to blend him in as a refugee and hide his identity, her with clean and fresh clothes that proudly displayed her Water Tribe heritage. Short black hair covering his head, long dark chocolate made into a braid on hers. Diametrically opposites, these two.

"Give it up." He told her with a snarl, his voice making her skin crawl.

"Never." She plainly replied despite the pang of fear she tried so desperately to bury deep within.

"I won't hold back." He warned her and positioned himself for an attack despite being across the field from his opponent. Hands clenched, pulled up to his chest, his breathing steady and a bit of vapour coming out of his mouth, ready to strike at a moment's notice.

"I don't need you to." She bit back and got into her own stance, very relaxed in contrast with him, her hands open and palms facing the ground, her water pouch opened and a liquid tendril making its way out of it and floating in the air between her hands.

If possible he narrowed his eyes even more and shot her an angry look. They kept peering at one another; her waiting for the aggressor to start and him mentally planning a course of action. The area was silent, birds stopped chirping for a quiet moment as the tension of the upcoming conflict set in, the leaves stopped rustling in the wind up in the canopy, the grass ceased its swaying, everything stilled. Even the two challengers were unusually muted, their breathing so hushed it was lower than a whisper.

Suddenly the scarred teen striked, taking one quick step forward and punching the air at wind-breaking speed, a potent yellow explosion came out from his fist and flew through the air in the form of a fireball as big as the waterbender's head, he took another step and punched again hard sending another fireball at the girl.

Thankfully for Katara due to their distance his attack took enough time to reach her that she could easily deflect the scorching fireballs with two swipes of her water stream, one for each ball. There was a hiss with every flame that was extinguished, a bit of mist floating in the air that Zuko's heated attacks had evaporated. She looked out at where she expected her enemy to be and noticed with wide eyes that he'd dashed towards her whilst she casually waited for the attack and was now dangerously close to her, having easily ran over half of the field in one single dash. He was jumping into the air still at a distance from her and kicked at the air, sending another attack her way.

Zuko was well aware of his limitations, his strengths and weaknesses. In a long distance fight he'd eventually be soundly defeated; it's in close quarters combat that he truly excelled at, thanks to years of military training. To win, to completely dominate this peasant girl, all he had to do was get close and overwhelm her, he had to make her feel his heat, then her fancy waterbending would be near useless in defending against him. The banished prince noticed with annoyance that Katara had killed his last flame too quick for him to close in as much as he wanted. He needed to try and overwhelm her with attacks again and move in while she was busy. He punched two more balls of scorching death at her and then another quick kick. He didn't manage to take more than two steps before a tendril of water came at him and swiped at his legs. Nearly falling he jumped at the last possible second and landed on the floor away from her reach, throwing a vicious frown.

Katara would admit, it was a bit difficult to keep up with his pace when he started firing fire at her like that, but she was up for a challenge, she knew she could do this. She could defeat him. If she could fight with the best and even impress master Pakku with her abilities, then she could take this brooding teenager, no problem. The way Zuko landed on the floor after dodging her attack and stumbled for a fraction of a second brought glee to her face. She knew she could take him, she just needed a bit of confidence in hersel- her thoughts were interrupted by the look he shot at her, and a shudder went up and down her spine. He was angry now.

"Rah!" he yelled in fury and shot ball after ball of fire from his closed fists. He kept punching the air and sending attacks at Katara with no hint at even losing stamina.

"Gah!" Katara yelped as she struggled to defend against the prince's onslaught at first before getting into a comfortable stride of slashing at his flames, to her credit she managed to use her water to fight back every single shot he fired at her. Not one flame came within arms-length of her body. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her cheek as she extinguished blast after blast, they seemed to be coming faster and faster and this damned firebender wasn't lightening up, not even to catch his breath, her eye wandered over to his form for a split-second and she saw something that made her blood run cold. He was slowly walking towards her while punching fire out of his hands.

Slowly but steady he was gaining ground on her. Each step he took he forced the Water Tribe girl to react to his attacks a fraction of a second faster. In truth he was gaining a whole new respect for her with how bravely she fought back and managed to stand up to him all by herself. It brought back memories from the North Pole when she'd fended him off and protected the Avatar. Zuko's eyes seemed to be in absolute rage at the earlier humiliation of losing his footing, but those flaming golden eyes were directed at the girl, unmoving and wandering over her with a lust for victory. His good eyebrow twitched up when he caught her taking a step back as he took one in her direction. He took another towards her whilst shooting his attack and caught her repeating the process, he growled. Peasant girl had realized his tactic and was being smart; if he dared push her back towards the forest surrounding them it'd be to her advantage. More places to hide, less opportunities for Zuko to attack unless he was willing to burn the whole forest down (which he was, but the prospect of open flames flaring all around him wasn't exactly ideal, and he needed her alive, damn it!)

Zuko did one last kick in her direction followed by punching his two fists out at her at the same that resulted in a larger fireball going after her, hoping that would distract her for one more valuable second, and ran at her as fast as he could.

Katara's eyes shot wide at the larger fireball coming her way after easily subduing at the firekick's flames, she felt herself be pushed back on the grass when she created a water shield to cover her upper body at the last second before the powerful ball crashed into her defences. She gritted her teeth at the momentary scalding warmth felt all around her as the fire was tamed and doused, before lowering her dome-like water shield. He was coming at her now. She didn't need to ponder what was her strategy going forward, it was clear. She bolted away from the prince. Her water was slowly being evaporated and eventually she'd run out of it, and along with it her only defence against this man.

Her wild dash towards the forested area behind her was going to be far from easy; no way he'd ever allow her to escape like that. She could already hear the fire travelling through the air aimed at her, and even though she never looked over her shoulder she could sense his snarl and even more concerning, she could feel that blazing stare of his on the back of her head. If her heart wasn't hammering and her heat rising she might've shuddered again.

A ball of flames barely missed Katara, went flying past the left side of her body and scorched the grass. Another shot came at her, this one flew up by her head and the waterbender had to duck her head and hold onto it with her hands to make sure she wouldn't lose it. Another one came, this one at her feet. Katara felt the heat burn the grass she was just stepping on, it had managed to catch her right leg and the floor below. Luckily for her, her boot protected her from the heat, but the startle made her stumble in her step and she could see herself lurching forwards, about to fall face first, she tucked her knees to her chest and rolled once on the grass, she came to a stop and was about to push herself up to continue running when three balls of fire went over her head again and burned the grass directly in front of her. Katara looked back and with horror realized he was standing over her, less than a couple feet behind her, looking down at her, his face cast in a dark shade as his body eclipsed the sun up in the sky behind him. It was an intimidating sight, despite the lack of light his eyes still shone through it all and stared into hers. He caught her.

He was breathing more heavily than he would've liked as he locked eyes with the girl, he didn't like to let her know that she had somehow managed to get him so tired. Still, he couldn't help but let a smirk show itself as he looked down at Katara. For a second he saw her reach down and touch her foot, inspecting it to see if she'd been seriously burnt. To both their relief her boot was only singed. Good, that's good. He needed her to walk.

A roar came from the forest, making both teens look in the direction it came from. It sounded feline-like, but much more intimidating than a house cat; it was something that would put even mighty mountain wolf-lions to shame and pit fear in brave men's hearts.

"What was that?" Katara asked, her eyes never leaving the dark forested area, she didn't exactly direct her inquiry at Zuko but since he was the only one there he was the one to answer it, his eyes also glued to the same spot she was looking at.

"Doesn't matter," he told her and with one last moment staring at the weird forest he turned his attention back to his prey, "You're coming with me." He told her, his tone made it clear that it was not up for discussion, his arm reaching down and grabbing her wrist to pull her up.

Katara's head jerked back as she felt this guy's hand on her and lost all fear in the unknown lurking behind the treeline. "No." she told him, her free hand going up to try and pry Zuko's fingers from her wrist, her heart sank a bit at the tight grip he had on her and her heart began to pump frantically. Oh no, this was like the pirates all over again, she grumbled mentally and kept trying to remove his hand from her wrist. Not enjoying one bit the warm possessive feeling of his palm and fingers holding tightly onto her slim wrist.

Zuko growled at how difficult she was making everything for him. She was even putting her whole weight on keeping herself on the floor no matter how hard he tried to pull her up to her feet. If she kept this up he'd have to resort to being rougher. Or maybe…

He pulled his free hand up and clenched it into a fist, immediately it came alive with a flame surrounding it and he made a motion that he was about ready to punch her with it. Maybe fear would work and get her to do his bidding.

Katara's eyes shot him a spiteful look, telling him to do it if he dared, which only got Zuko to shoot her a look filled with just as much venom. Something had to break eventually, and each of them intended it to be the other.

That roar came back once more, angrier, fiercer. Also louder, why was it louder? Zuko turned his head to the side to inspect, feeling confident that Katara wouldn't be able to break free from the vice grip he had on her, the prince's eyes went wide, the blood ran from his face and his mouth opened in shock.

Right in front of Katara's eyes a large spotted blur lunged at her captor and rolled him off of her. She grasped her wrist with her other hand and quickly looked at the growling monster that stood a few feet away on four strong legs. Her mouth fell open and a gasp came out.

It looked like a cat. A really big, hairy cat. A huge feline with orange fur and black circular pattern all over its fuzz. It lacked the mane of a lion but it sure as heck dwarfed the king of the jungle. Its tail swung aggressively left and right as it stared down the prince who stood in front of it, his scarred face full of fear but also anger that things kept getting in the way of his plans. Katara couldn't tell since she only got sight of this monster's back, but the beast could also boast to having the sharpest pair of canines he'd ever seen, they were so long they went down a couple of inches past its jaw. The feline's eyes a dark amber glint that mirrored Zuko's eerily close with a faint hue of lime green. Annoyingly enough this creature wasn't completely horrifying, it also had a pair of droopy ears that looked like a rabbit's, they hung down from the top of its head and went even further down than its sharp yellowed teeth, almost grazing the floor.

It snarled and menacingly growled at the prince which made him take a step back in caution. But Zuko gathered his courage and told himself he wouldn't be taking one more step back like a coward, even without his honor he was still no craven. He gulped hard and took a stance, readying himself to blast this kitty cat to smithereens, throwing the overgrown puss his deepest scowl. The beast merely growled at him again and lowered its head, the cat's smouldering amber eyes never leaving the firebender's determined golden ones, it looked ready to lunge with that long tail of its swiping in the air from side to side, daring Zuko to take the first step in this slaughter, and Zuko dared him back just as hard.

Katara took this as divine intervention; even animals seemed to hate the Fire Nation! Carefully she climbed back to her feet and was ready to sneak away, casting her eyes back at Zuko but he didn't seem to notice her, his gaze fixed on the beast in front of him. Then she heard an aggressive growl coming right in front of her. She gulped, hard and turned her head in the direction of the sound. Another large monster like the first one began walking out from the shadows cast by the trees. It was just like the other one that'd saved her from Zuko, perhaps a bit smaller and its canines shorter, but the damn beast was still easily as tall as her stomach even while on its front and hind-legs and those teeth could pierce through bone all the same. It was leering at Katara and inching closer. Somehow she had a feeling this one wasn't intending on rescuing her with the way it hungrily stared.

Instinct took over and the waterbender turned her back to the monster and ran as fast as she could towards the opposite treeline. She could hear the cat that'd taken interest in her roar that scary cry she'd heard earlier and the heavy sound of its paws hitting the ground, immediately chasing her like the prey she was. It was so fast.

At the sound of a second rabbit-eared tiger monster, Zuko took his eyes off his own cat for a second, just a split-second, and caught the waterbender running across the field with a tiger of her own hot on her trail, its mouth baring teeth. A momentary distraction was all the tiger staring Zuko down needed and it lunged at the prince with its claws. The Fire Nation prince barely jumped out of the monster's pounce, falling onto his side in urgency, the tiger quickly lunged once more at Zuko and the prince yet again barely dodged the sharp claws on its paws, rolling around on the grass away from the snarling bloodthirsty monster he got up to one knee and punched a couple fire blasts in retaliation. Maybe the peasant girl had had the right idea, better to be a smart coward that gets to live another day than a brave stubborn corpse.

Closing her eyes hard, Katara willed her legs to keep on going, her muscles protested that she was going too fast and her lungs burned that she needed to pace herself but she threw caution to the wind and ran. Ran like her life depended on it, which it every much did, and before she knew it she'd made it to the treeline, somehow keeping herself a few feet ahead of her predator. She looked over her shoulders as she made it to the trees and saw that the tiger kept coming for her, only a dozen or so feet behind her. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to burst.

She kept running as fast as she could, the tiger was closing in. She did zigzags between the trees to try and lose the beast, the tiger was closing in. She jumped over fallen tree trunks, the tiger was closing in.

Katara could feel its breath tickling the back of her head, almost, or maybe that was just her heightened senses making her feel things that weren't really there. Closing her eyes hard and gritting her teeth in pure fear she braced herself for her inevitable death, mentally saying farewell to Aang, Toph, Momo, Appa, her dad, her brother, and hoping that she'd meet her mom again in the afterlife, praying that her end would come quick and painless.

But something came over Katara at the last second, with a flick of her hand she opened the water pouch she carried and pulled out a thin strip of water. She slashed wildly behind her, trying to keep the beast at bay, the heard something hard being cut in two in a fraction of a second, and the heavy thud of a tree falling behind her, and soon after the angry growl of the tiger. Katara looked over her shoulder and saw the tiger gingerly step over the large tree she'd cut down and an idea came to her mind before the cat monster could continue chasing her. She began slashing wildly at every tree she ran past, knocking it down and making tree blockades between herself and the beast.

She kept running, and thankfully, the tiger was left behind.

Several minutes later Katara fell onto her knees, hunched over with her hands on the mossy ground she gasped for air. She'd been running like a madwoman for what hadd felt like hours now, and even though she hadn't felt the tiger's breath on the back of her neck since she cut down that first tree, she could still hear the lingering roars that echoed around the forest, this monster might not be hot on her trail anymore, but it was still looking for her.

She wanted to lie down on the floor and just die, there was no way she could outrun this rabbit-tiger for much longer. The sound of running water reached her ears and made her head perk-up. Yes! At least with her element by her side she could fight back and fend for herself. Forcing her legs to endure just a few minutes longer she stood and made her way through the trees at a hasty pace and soon enough she came by a cabin located next to a small running creek. Her eyes opened wide and she ran to the wooden cabin, banging on the door loudly.

"Help! Please help! Is anyone there?!" she called out, hoping to be far enough away from the tiger that'd chased her that it wouldn't hear her. One of the bangs of her fist against the wooden made something metallic break and fall onto the floor on the other side of the door, the old wooden entrance swung open eerily, creaking from rusted hinges. Peeking inside Katara instantly noticed it was dark, dusty, and seemed abandoned. But just to make sure, she stepped inside, she noticed her booted foot stepping on the rusty lock she'd broken accidentally. This place must've been abandoned for a while now for it to break by simply banging on the other side of the door.

It didn't take long for Katara to conclude that there really wasn't anybody living here anymore. Aside from a tiny rat that scrambled away with her footsteps there was no living creature there, and certainly no humans. She sighed with disappointment and was going to get out of there when she almost tripped on some weird rough carpet. Looking down at it she caught sight of a pelt the same pattern as those weird cats that'd attacked her and Zuko. Immediately she jumped off of the animal skin lying on the ground, as if it could come back to life.

Lifting her head from that weird animal hide she started noting other little tidbits she initially missed. A couple more pelts of this same species of cat were hanging from opposite walls of this cabin, and a stuffed head hung up in the mantle with the paralysed expression of a might roar. This place was giving her the creeps, so Katara opted to leave. There was nobody here to help her, she needed to fend for herself and find her way back to the group, they'd soon start getting worried with her.

Before she could step foot outside of this dark old cabin something from the corner of it caught her eye, something metallic caught a bit of the sunlight coming in through the open doorway and shone. With a raised eyebrow she approached it. A few spears were stacked neatly against the corner of the cabin, she picked one up and analysed it. It looked, eerily familiar as she examined the long wood handle and the craftsmanship of the tip. Her foot knocking against something on the floor and as she picked it up she came to realize why this looked like something she should know. In her hands she held an old fuzzy wolf helmet, like her people would don when they went to war, and by the markings it looked to be Southern Water Tribe.

Water Tribe men had been here, she came to realize! Maybe there was a small resistance base around here somewhere and she could find her way there.

Her inner thoughts were rudely interrupted by a pair of loud roars echoing throughout the forest not too far from her location. Oh no, another one had shown up. Or wait, had Zuko been killed and now the other tiger had joined in the hunt? Katara looked down in thought and silently hoped the firebender hadn't been killed, hate him and his people as much as she did, she could still not find it in her to wish death on him. He was cruel, evil, and always angry, but she had to remind herself that he was still just a kid like her, probably not even much older than Sokka. No, that firebender was as elusive as he was a jerk, he was surely fine. Jerkbender.

A quick look outside and she saw these hungry beasts weren't yet there so she rushed to the creek and hurried herself up refilling her water pouch. She was about a quarter of the way done when she heard the snap of a twig behind her.

Startled she turned around to check what it had been but a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves tightly around her torso from behind right as she turned. The heat she felt press up against her back was enough to tell her who it was but the purring voice that tickled at the back of her ear confirmed it, "Got you." Zuko said.

Katara struggled, tried to toss and turn in his tight embrace but couldn't do much, her arms pinned to her sides as he held her and as if to taunt her he even picked her up off the ground, her feet dangling in the air she started thrashing them to try and wedge herself from him, grunting and grumping at him as she did. His arms were wrapped so tight against her, she could feel the warmth seep in through her clothes already, the way his arms were crossed directly over her chest made her flustered, if he were facing her he could see the beginnings of a blush on her face. "Let go!"

"Shh!" he ordered her and not a second later another twig snapping was heard. Wait what; Katara thought that had been Zuko distracting her to catch her up from behind.

The banished prince released one of his arms from wrapping around her chest and placed his hand over her mouth, the other arm still securely around her he quickly dragged her across the creek and behind the first tree he could reach, his back pressed up against the dark brown bark, a squirming waterbender pressed up against him with a warm palm covering her mouth.

"Quiet, they're here." His voice low as a whisper. She stopped squirming for a second and looked up at him, catching him peeking around the tree, just barely. She mimicked him and peeked as well, her heart hammering faster and faster.

The two huge cats with big scary teeth and droopy ears came walking out from the forest. Katara noticed immediately that one was the one that'd chased her, the other the one that attacked Zuko. Katara's predator was sniffing at the ground while Zuko's was growling, saliva escaping its mouth.

"You didn't kill him?" she spoke astonished, not even realizing he'd removed his hand from her mouth just a second earlier. She'd taught that the prince had somehow defeated his tiger, and that made her a bit more confident that she too could deal with her own tiger were it needed.

"No." he told her plainly, still looking over at the pair of large felines walking around the cabin. The bigger one looked at the open cabin and growled at it before looking away and walking to the creek and following the stream, the other followed suit.

"They're hunting us now." He said out-loud once the big cats were safely enough away, more to himself than Katara. He quickly put his hand back over her mouth, to which the waterbender resumed her struggles against him and began dragging her across the creek towards the cabin. Zuko needed some rope to tie her with.

AN: Hey guys! It's me again, I really hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my first mini-series, "The Hunted". I want to specify, in case I totally blew the description of the creature, but I intended it to be a mixture of a smilodon (saber-tooth tiger) and a rabbit. It pretty much looks like a saber-tooth tiger but with long droopy bunny ears and a lion's tail. I did think for a moment to give them a little fluffy bunny tail and rabbit teeth but I thought it was more comical that it's an intimidating beast with only one trait that doesn't belong xD

I apologize if Katara might've seemed a bit weak, defenceless, and even cowardly this chapter, rereading this I see some areas I could've given her more of a shine, but at the same time it fits perfectly in my mind as is. Please let me know what you all think! Any pacing issues? Out of character moments? Grammar mistakes? Advice? Tips?

Next chapter these two are gonna be all alone in the woods at night ;) Lots of fluff is bound to occur.

rebornrose