NOTE: This chapter is kinda short and I'm sorry, but it has been sitting on my computer for weeks and I'm so done with it. Anyu is my own character. Wow, Zuko is hard to write! I know where I am going with this story, I just need to get there. Zuko and Katara will eventually meet, babies 3 Onward!

CHAPTER 3

Katara made a beeline for the gate after exiting the council room. Hell if they'll find me out there. She eyed the small white door that was set into the side of the towering ice wall and edged toward it, silently, as she had done a hundred times before. It wasn't that she hated the Northern Water Tribe- it was only that, despite the sprawling city and the hundreds of tribesmen clamoring to befriend the Avatar, Katara felt inexplicably isolated. When she made her weekly escapades beyond the city walls, she never ran away or tried to escape- it wasn't as if she was truly a prisoner, anyway. She simply spent hours sitting on the edge of a glacier outside the walls of the city, staring blankly into the dark water and listening to the low cracking sounds of ice drifting against itself. That sort of isolation wasn't so bad.

Katara shook her head and opened the door, slipping through it in the same motion and closing it quietly behind her.

"Spirits," she heard someone curse loudly, followed quickly by "Oh, Katara, it's you. Um… Sorry about that. You, uh, scared me."

Katara laughed. "Sorry, Anyu. I should knock."

"We both know you never do, though." The young guard rolled his eyes at her and leaned back in his chair, propping his boots onto his desk. She felt a pang in her chest when the way that he pointed at her accusingly reminded her of Sokka. "So, going out there again? What happened this time?"

Sighing, Katara took a few steps forward to lean on Anyu's desk beside his feet. She peered out of the window that he spent his guard shifts staring through, but as usual, the only thing that met her eye was a vast, white expanse of empty snow. "Just Avatar stuff. And my Dad. They want me to leave, to learn earthbending."

Anyu frowned. "Do you want to talk about it? I'd listen, I mean. Who's they?"

"The council, and some earthbending woman they've brought in. Well, Earth Kingdom. I'm assuming she's a bender." Katara's forehead wrinkled. "Actually, I didn't ask if she'd be the master. It doesn't matter either way, does it? She's only here to tell me what's best for me, and remind me that I need to be used as some sort of secret world peace trump card. Today is the worst possible day for them to heap all this on me, too. It's… well." She sighed again. "My dad had the nerve to bring my mother into it. He told me she would have liked to see me as some fully realized Avatar. I told him she would have liked to not be murdered."

Anyu winced, but he quickly schooled his features. When he started to talk again, it was tentatively. "Have you… have you ever earthbended before? I mean, I know that when you realized, you must have done… something besides water, but-"

"No." Katara rolled her head back to stare at the ceiling. "Well, I mean, not consciously. When we found out, it was… the day she died. I ran away, and when I kicked my way out I set our tent on fire. There were bits of rock everywhere. It was a mess. That's how they knew, at first."

"So you had an Avatar tantrum?"

"My mother had just died, I wouldn't call it a tantrum." Her voice rose dangerously, and Anyu raised his hands in surrender.

"I was just making a joke," he apologized. "A bad one. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm just touchy today." She allowed herself to smile reluctantly. "You're my friend, Anyu. I knew what you meant."

Katara never stayed long, but for some reason, today, she found herself reluctant to leave. Anyu was staring expectantly in her direction, so she took a breath and continued.

"I feel lost. I don't know what to do. I know I should be trying to master all the elements so that I can have some part to play in this war, but what if I can't? There's no guarantee I'll ever even be able to master airbending. The airbenders are gone! The last Avatar is gone! And I have no idea what happened to him, and now I'm here, and…" She trailed off.

"Katara, I'm sure that-" Anyu started to speak, but he stopped when he noticed her bright blue eyes brimming with tears.

"I don't even know what my mother would have told me. I don't know what she would have wanted, and I think that is the worst part of all of this. Not knowing."

She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears from spilling out. There was a loud scraping noise when Anyu pushed his chair back and put his feet down. When she looked at him again, he was leaning forward, looking at her seriously.

"Katara, you do know what your mother would tell you. She loved you. That's why you're here, isn't it? She gave her life for you, to protect you, the last Southern waterbender. She wanted you to have the chance to become a master. Imagine if she could see you now! She would be so proud. I know she would." He leaned forward to take her hands in his.

"I know you miss her. And I know your dad does just as much. He didn't mean to upset you. He just believes in you, and he knows your mother did too. She really would want you to be the best Avatar yet."

Katara stood and smiled sadly at him. "Maybe she would," she whispered. "I just wish I could speak to her, one more time." With that, she slipped quietly through the door to the other side of the wall, to sit on her glacier and think.

"It's what she would have wanted," she heard, over and over again in her head, until her skull was pounding and she couldn't take it anymore. A few rogue tears slipped unbidden from her squinted blue eyes and froze there on her cheeks. Katara shivered. Almost an hour had passed before she stood to head back inside, to face her father and more of her own thoughts. It won't do if I freeze out here, she thought with a bitter laugh.

When Zuko strode onto the deck of his ship the next morning, he looked like death. He had screamed and sobbed into his pillow for hours the previous night, and his good eye was swollen and rimmed with red. None of his crew dared to say anything, but they all took notice. It was only Iroh that noticed the glint of almost manic determination behind his nephew's eyes, and it worried him.

"Have you decided on a new plan, Prince Zuko?" He kept his tone pleasant, but he was still concerned. Zuko was too distracted to notice his uncle's uneasiness.

"Yes. We're starting over. Tomorrow we start for Ba Sing Se. I'm going to search under every damn rock in the Earth Kingdom."

Iroh looked at him for a moment, then brightened.

"I know just what you need, Nephew! A nice, hot cup of jasmine tea and some time to relax. Come, let's play a game of Pai-"

"I am not playing Pai Sho! I am not resting!" Zuko shouted, then squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in heavily. "I will not stop until I capture the Avatar. The next time I have time to rest, it will be in my own bedroom in the Fire Nation Palace. My home."

"Zuko, what do you expect to find in Ba Sing Se? The Avatar is not likely to be hiding in such-"

Again, Zuko cut his uncle off before he could finish his thought

"He may be the Avatar, but he had to learn the other three elements somewhere. Even if he isn't there, someone who knows something will be." The look on his face was frightening, even as he turned and began to walk away."

"I will find him," he repeated, calling back over his shoulder. Iroh only shook his head.