Chapter Text
Katara lays awake in her sleeping bag listening to the sounds of their camp. Toph is snoring loudly as ever, mercifully muffled by her stone tent. Aang's breathing is a slow faint whisper, much like the wind as he sleeps peacefully across from the fire that has now died down to nothing but faint embers. Despite the silence, Katara can not sleep; the one sound missing is the wheezy snoring of her brother, a sound that she has fallen asleep to without fail every night for as long as she can remember. But tonight Sokka sleeps at master Piandao’s Estate as his apprentice. Logically, she knows he’s safe there, and that training under Piandao is just what he needs to take the next step. They had all agreed this morning that he needed a master- but now, as she tries to sleep without the sound of her brothers breathing for the first time in years, she can’t help but feel restless. Deciding that trying to sleep when she’s so wound up is futile, she quietly climbs out of her sleeping bag, careful not to wake her companions. Digging through her bag for supplies, she dons a loose red robe- tied around the waist with a length of coarse rope, and a wide-brimmed straw hat adorned with a sheer shift to make a veil. To complete her look she kneels by the river bank, dipping her fingers in the damp clay and paints her face in red swirls. As The Painted Lady, she rises and stalks off to the city of Shu Jing.
~
Zuko, angrier than ever (and lost without Iroh’s guidance), falls back on the one thing from his travels that made him feel like the good guy; masquerading as the Blue Spirit. In Ba Sing Se it started as a way to blow off steam and keep in fighting shape. He would stalk through the streets of the lower ring at night, keeping to the shadows but looking for a fight. Usually his prey was local thugs and unruly drunks just thrown out of a bar. He didn’t really care who they were, as long as they could put up a good fight. He never killed or maimed, just incapacitated his victims and moved on.
One night when he was on the prowl he heard screaming. Following the source of the noise, he found a woman surrounded by 4 men pawing at her and making crude threats. One of the men had her arms pinned behind her back and held a knife to her throat. The other men were rifling through her clothes, digging through her pockets and letting their hands linger. As he came upon this scene, Zuko knew her found his prey for the night. He’s nearly dispatched the 4 men only using his Dao swords when unbenounced, a 5th joins the fray. Where this warrior came from Zuko does not know, but unlike the others he is most certainly a trained warrior. He is faster, stronger and an earth bender. Caught by surprise, Zuko is outmatched- it is hard to block stone, even with dual swords. Cornered and nearly beaten, he uses fire bending to chase the warrior off.
He turns to slip away into the shadows when the woman reaches up from when she fell at the beginning of the fight and grabs his wrist. Adrenaline pumping in his veins Zuko freezes, his instincts tell him to flee- she's seen him bend and he needs to leave quickly before any Dai Lee show up, but he doesn't want to hurt a woman who already had a hard night. He slowly turns to face her, expecting to see fear or anger or even disgust. For a long moment she keeps her grip on his wrist, staring into the dark eyes of the mask until finally both her eyes and her grip soften with gratitude. A quiet “Thank you” whispers past her lips and then The Blue Spirit is gone, already melted into the shadows.
From that night on, whenever Zuko prowled the streets as the Blue Spirit looking for trouble, he would look for muggers and attackers- those harming the innocent. He was chasing the feeling he got when he saw gratitude in the eyes of those he protected. Tonight was no different- he told his father he was going to travel the Fire Nation to see the country he had missed for the past 3 years. During the day he would travel the nation in a palanquin with a royal entourage. At night he would slip away from his guards and look to protect his people as the Blue Spirit.
Tonight he was in a small town on an island just at the edge of the Fire Nation. Desperately trying to recreate the feeling he felt in Ba Sing Se when he knew he was doing the right thing. As he was slinking through the shadows, looking for anything amiss, he spots a ghostly figure clad in red, enveloped by a personal cloud of fog. He tails them to the local military outpost. He can make out just enough of their figure through the red robe tied off with rope to see that it’s a woman. Though he can’t catch more than a glimpse of her face past her wide hat and veil; only snatches of what looks like swirls of red. Zuko watches as the woman surrounded by mist slips into the compound. He slips in after her, quiet as her unseen shadow. He follows her all the way to the store room, which it appears to take her a little while to find. Watching silently as she gathers a bag full of supplies- dried food, clothes and medicine.
When he was younger he would have found stealing from the military an executable offence, but now after everything he has seen and done, he doesn't find it enough to warrant attacking the woman, only enough to make him interested enough to observe a little more. He follows her out, curious where she will lead. Sticking to the rooftops, he hurries after as she makes a bee-line for the worst part of the small town. He watches in awe as she stops before a dilapidated house and pulls out some of the stolen goods from her sack to leave on the doorstep. House after house, she leave a little food here and a fresh set of clothes there, never staying long and always seemingly unaware of her shadow.
~
Katara stops at an old man sleeping on the side of the street. She had almost missed him, he was so still and so quiet. Swirled in red and fog, she kneels by the man and is digging through her bag of contraband when he starts into a fit of coughing so hard it rattles his whole frame. Quickly she drops the bag and draws a small stream of water from her bending pouch around her hands so that she can heal him and soothe his coughs. She finds fluid pooling in his lungs and remembers hearing about such a sickness. As she bends the liquid from his lungs it causes him to heave even harder as he coughs it up. Once he settles down, she rummages in the bag, looking for the medicine she remembers grabbing back at the military storage. Suddenly, behind her she hears the distinct sound of boots scuffing on the ground. She turns slowly to look at the newcomer and sees a brawny man dressed in Fire Nation military issued uniform. Sitting very still, nearly holding her breath, she prays to Tu that she'll go unnoticed under the cover of her fog, wincing when the old man starts coughing again.
“Hey you there! Come out where I can see you” calls a rough voice from half a block behind her.
Katara bolts, running down the nearest alley freezing a thin sheet of ice behind her from the moisture of the fog she keeps swirling around her. The soldier gives chase, yelling “Stop!” after her and blowing on a whistle around his neck. He slips and falls on the ice Katara left but is soon joined by three other soldiers who help him up.
“The thief went that way!” his yell echoes down the alley to Katara.
She doesn’t risk a glance back as she keeps running until she finds this alley ends in a dead end with a wall too high for her to climb. If only she had more water on her she could bend herself over the wall. She turns to fight, finding four soldiers advancing on her from the entrance of the dead end. She looks around desperately for something to bend, only having what's left of her bending water after making the fog and healing that man. The soldier from before snarls at her
“You match the description of someone seen sneaking away from the military base after ransacking the store room. Stealing from the military is an executable offense.” At this the soldier lights their fist full of flames and take a step closer.
Suddenly a fifth figure drops down from the roof above between Katara and the soldiers. She gasps in surprise as the being, covered head to toe in black, turns slightly to look at her, revealing a grinning blue mask staring back at her.
~
Continued in Don’t Hurt Her