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The first ripple of guilt catches up with her when she’s at his bedroom door, hand hovering over the knob.
Zuko arrived one month ago.
In that time, he’s taken Aang off with him alone and they both returned, not only in one piece and with a stronger comradery than before, but with a better ability to firebend. Zuko is helpful, starting fires or drying damp wood with his bending, scrubbing dishes, or helping Sokka craft traps and snares for meat.
He’s focused on Aang’s training, serious about the stakes at hand in a way Aang is not.
Naturally, all of this only makes Katara more suspicious.
She is convinced that Zuko is lulling them into a sense of false security.
And of course, since the others can’t be bothered to take her seriously about the imminent dangers of Zuko, that makes it her job—no, her reluctant duty—to scrutinize him for evidence of evil intent. So in the spirit of duty and responsibility, Katara has taken it upon herself to learn Zuko’s schedule.
He wakes early. He meditates, and then he trains on his own before Aang drags himself out of bed. He does this shirtless and sweating and spinning around the courtyard. Conveniently, Katara has discovered the courtyard is visible from her room, if she stands at her window at just the right angle. Zuko might know she’s onto him if she watches him train when he’s alone. When Aang is there, she has an excuse.
He knocks out some chores in the morning, trains again with Aang at midday, and takes some leisure hours in the early afternoon. Dinner often has him hovering, asking her if she needs any help. She accepts it, if only for the opportunity to be cold to him and to make sure that he’s not off doing something else.
Because while Katara, by now, almost has Zuko’s entire day mapped out, there is that window of time in the late afternoon where, on many days, he disappears. It was alarming, the first time Katara lost track of him. Now Katara knows that Zuko vanishes into the woods that surround the temple, and she knows he takes a small satchel with him, slung over one broad shoulder. She knows this because she scrambled up a tree one day in order to spy on him.
He's clearly up to something fishy.
Katara is determined to find out what this is all about.
So it is that Katara has justified to herself a quick peek into his room to search for anything suspicious—letters to the Fire Lord, or some other similar indication of heinous treachery. It will ease her mind and won’t take long. In and out, just a peek. It’s for the safety of the group, after all. She takes a deep breath.
With a last glance along the corridor, Katara turns the knob, pushes on the door, and steps inside.
She hasn’t been in here since the day Zuko arrived. It has changed, a little. It looks lived in.
The bed is neatly made, the blankets pulled perfectly tight along the corners. The last of the evening light tips through the open window, brightening a pot of yellow flowers on the sill. It’s a reminder that right now, Zuko will be lingering after dinner, chumming it up with the others. The thought makes Katara scowl.
It’s further proof they’re accepting him, and that Katara is alone in her suspicion.
At the beginning, Zuko was more withdrawn, but he has been staying around the campfire longer and longer lately. That doesn’t mean she can dawdle in here, of course. Katara strides purposefully to the center of the room and glances around. If she were a no-good, sneaky fire prince, where would she hide her secrets?
She does a slow turn, scanning carefully. The normality of the room must be a misdirection.
There’s a portrait of Iroh hanging on the wall. A tunic flung over a stool. A meditation mat propped against the far wall. A tome rests on a small table beside the bed along with a candlestick, the candle inside it scarlet and half-melted. Katara narrows her eyes and flicks the tome open to get a glimpse of the title on the cover: The Teachings of Monk Cheonyi. Most of the temple’s documented knowledge has been either destroyed or snatched by the Fire Nation, but last week, the group scrounged up several tomes in their exploration of the temple’s many rooms. This must be one of them. Katara huffs. It doesn’t make sense that Zuko would read about Air Nomad spirituality for the Fire Nation’s benefit; they’re long gone. But the idea of him reading about the Air Nomads out of interest…
Impossible.
Katara’s eyes land on the last thing in the room—the wardrobe.
She flings it open to see what possible dark secrets Zuko has inside.
At first she sees only clothes. Tunics and trousers, scarlet and gold and black…
Katara pulls open a drawer and discovers the bag he arrived with. Another surge of guilt accosts her when she reaches for it, but she shoves it down and makes herself think of Ba Sing Se, really remember it. That feeling in her chest when Zuko attacked Aang, the horror and the...surprise. The surprise hurt most, because it came from a shattered hope about Zuko she hadn’t even internally verbalized to herself yet.
She’d sincerely believed that her kindness meant something to him, when they were prisoners together.
Well, she’d been a gullible idiot. Katara won't fall for the broody, sensitive prince act again.
She won't make the same mistake twice.
She ruthlessly tugs open Zuko's bag, but there are only several coins rattling at the bottom. She flings it down, growing agitated. Surely there has to be something he’s hiding. Where does he go on those afternoon hikes? That’s the answer, she’s sure of it. If she could only find…
There.
The satchel Zuko takes with him on his afternoon walks is on the floor of the wardrobe.
Eagerly, Katara pries it open, and then stares inside with growing confusion.
Flowers. Picked flowers of all colors: violets and blues, reds and oranges and yellows.
Katara thrusts her hand in the satchel and rummages around. Nothing else.
Just soft, sweet-smelling flowers.
Scowling, Katara returns the satchel to its spot before leaning fully into the wardrobe and feeling around blindly to see if something is on the floor, hidden in the darkness. Her hands touch what feels like hair, and she shudders, fingers jerking back, but then she realizes they are only bristles of a brush. Something cold and smooth is next; several somethings, and Katara pulls one out to examine it. It’s a small clay jar, and inside is a dark blue liquid. Katara holds it up to the fading light, swirling it, frowning. Ultimately deciding it isn’t something explosive, Katara puts it back, too. And then she finally fumbles upon a stack of scrolls.
Her heart somehow drops and leaps at the same time before it starts to pound. This is it.
This must be Zuko’s correspondence with the Fire Lord.
Katara almost drops the stack of scrolls in her haste.
They aren’t rolled or bound. They also aren’t filled with characters or writing, as she expected.
Katara, on the floor with her knees folded under her, peers down at the first one for a long time.
It’s a painting.
She keeps looking at it and looking at it, unable to believe her eyes. But the pieces fall into place. It all makes sense. The colorful flowers. The jar with blue liquid. Zuko collects flowers and makes watercolors and then he sits in this room and he paints. The idea of it is so mind-boggling and contrary to what she expects from him. If Katara had to give thought to his hobbies—besides his clear favorites of ‘shouting’, ‘hunting the Avatar’, and ‘being a dirty backstabber’—she’d have guessed they all involve highly physical things in which he uses his muscles. It’s probably why he has so many of them.
Not that she really notices his muscles in that way, or anything. That’s ridiculous. It's just practical to acknowledge them. They make Zuko strong, add to his threat, that’s all, so it’s something Katara has found wise to make mental note of while watching him train. But Zuko doing cerebral, creative things...tucked over a scroll, carefully painting… Katara gives herself a shake. She has a hard time imagining it. Somehow, this discovery makes her angrier.
Why doesn’t this stupid boy make any sense?
Katara nosily flips through the stack, unable to help herself.
The first painting was a standard beach.
There are other nature scenes, too. There are practice sheets, where Zuko has painted the same thing over and over, mostly things like hands or noses or other parts of anatomy. And Zuko is…well, he’s good. These paintings are good. She keeps flipping through. Some part of her knows that shifting through his art pile like a little magpie has nothing to do with ensuring group safety, not really, but Katara can’t bring herself to stop.
The next painting is Momo, mouth open in mid-garble.
She almost smiles, before catching herself and forcing it to a scowl.
Katara keeps flipping. There’s Appa. Aang and Toph practicing earthbending. Sokka and Suki sitting at a fire, Sokka’s arm slung around Suki’s shoulders as they smile. There’s a breathtaking painting of two dragons, red and blue, jaws wide and gaping, breathing fire like the rainbow. There’s one of Iroh.
And…
Her fingers fumble a little on the edges of the next one.
It’s her. She’s bending. Zuko has captured her from the side, her arms curved, one leg stepping forward. Her expression is fierce and concentrated as water twines around her and out into a defined whip. She can’t stop staring at it. She looks so… so graceful, and strong, and there’s something different about this one. Maybe it’s only because the subject is her and she examines it longer as a result, but it seems more detailed to her, as though it was painted more carefully.
He used that blue color for her dress. And for her eyes.
It’s almost shocking, the way her eyes in the painting draw the gaze. They're such a bright, deep blue.
Her pulse, for some reason, is racing, and her mouth has gone dry.
It gets infinitely worse when the sound of approaching footsteps rips her attention back to the room.
Her pounding heart shoots to her throat, cold panic rolls down her spine, and with a numb, impending horror, Katara scrambles to put the paintings back, shuts the wardrobe, and springs to her feet. The knob rattles, and Katara spins to face the door. She’s frozen. Zuko’s going to catch her.
But the rattling pauses, and there’s a murmur of voices through the door. Someone is talking to him.
Katara sends fervent mental gratitude to the person who bought her the precious seconds she needs to rush over and dive unceremoniously out of the open window. She slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out upon landing; there are bushes under the window, but they are full of thorns, and they slice at her arms and face and her clothes. She landed hard on her right shoulder and elbow, and hot tears smart at her eyes. If Zuko walks to the window and looks down, he could easily discover her.
He’s in the room now. She hears his footsteps moving around, and if she shifts, the bushes will rustle.
Oh, spirits, why did she do something so stupid? Why didn’t she just put the paintings down and leave?
She should never have gone into his room. The guilt returns in full force, and this time, it doesn't fully recede.
She waits in the bushes for a long time, perpetually poked by thorns, arm and back aching, and feeling like an utter lunatic. Finally, the sounds of Zuko moving around in there cease. It’s dark enough to guess he’s probably gone to bed. To be extra sure, Katara waits longer before crawling out of her hiding place of shame. She’s grouchy and hungry, in pain and scratched up, as she stomps away.
Once in the sanctuary of her own room, she heals herself and seethes for a while.
This has been a setback, to be sure, but this doesn’t mean that Zuko is innocent. So what if he collects flowers and paints? So what if he’s observant and artistic? So what if his paintings are pretty, and she liked his depiction of her, how she looks interesting and powerful? He must have been watching closely, which means...
Aha!
Yes, he’s been watching her carefully too. Maybe not as carefully as she watches him, but Zuko isn’t stupid. Zuko knows she doesn’t trust him, that she’s the biggest threat to his dastardly deeds. So he’s been keeping an eye on her, assessing her, especially when she bends. Likely to determine her weaknesses.
Katara straightens her shoulders, indignant. That jerk.
Well, she hasn’t given up on proving Zuko’s guilt quite yet, though she has learned the dangers of taking her snooping too far. She has no wish to repeat the bush debacle or anything similar. Since Zuko clearly has spying skills of his own, she’ll have to be more careful from now on. Subtle. She can manage that.
It’s her duty to the others, after all.