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[princeinexile]

Zuko leads Katara into 103, alone -- Miho's shadowy absence frustrates him, scares him, but he says nothing as he shuts the door.

He waits.

"I want you to tell me everything. Everything. And we will see what happens."

Comments

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

Katara took a deep, shaky breath, standing there in the center of the room and looking uneasy. Understandably.

"I ran into Harth after the rain--I was going to tell you when I ran into Giles and found out some thing--and then he attacked."

[princeinexile]

"When?"

There's nothing there; just him listening. No expression, no -- affection or hate in any measure. Just blank neutrality as he sits down in a large, pink chair (the one Ty Lee favors)..

...and looks disturbingly like a Lord.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

Disturbingly.

It made her want to...whatever the opposite of kneeling was, that's what she wanted to do.

"Right after the rain stopped, I rain into him. We...I tried to attack him, but it was pretty much useless--the rain was starting to dry up and he's always been...he's always been stronger and faster.

One of those strange little dogs was with him, the ones that glow, and it--I healed it. It was just an animal--it'd been hurt by the rain.

He told me...that for a kindness, he'd give me a kindness. He said we have another traitor for sure."

[princeinexile]

Zuko frowns. Okay, traitor information -- could be a false lead, could be something to freak them out. He's not sure. But he asks, "What kindness-- and," wait, what? "A glowing dog?"

He looked less lordly trying to figure out what the hell Harth is doing with glowing dogs. Starting a night-light kennel?

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"There was a glowing dog. It...it just glowed. I don't know what it was--some kind of spirit animal. That's why I thought it would be a bad idea not to heal it."

That bit had confused her, too.

[princeinexile]

"...great. Well, now he's got magog and spirit dogs. Just what we need," Zuko grumbled.

"So you healed the dog -- and Harth owed you a kindness. Why wasn't your necklace kindness enough?" Zuko asks, looking at the pendant.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"He gave that after. He said there was another traitor first--if there is one, and he wasn't lying, I'm wondering if maybe it isn't one he doesn't care much about--what if there's someone other than him and he just happened to find out about them?"

[princeinexile]

Zuko glances away; Miho was dead -- was this the threat? "It wouldn't be far off his game to reveal someone who might distrupt his control of the 'game', as it were."

A beat.

"Who told you they could save Harth, Katara?"

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"Giles...but he." She took a deep breath. "I asked him what made vampires the way they were, and he said when a person gets turned into one their spirit gets taken away, and a monster lives in their skin, using bits of their personality and mind that are leftover.

When we were in the Hive, Harth did...he did some kind of ritual. Using my blood and my hair...he made this..crown that he put on Giles and I think...anyway Giles said he thinks Harth might still have his soul, but it's locked away, trapped inside his own body, and the monster's controlling him..."

She looked up. "And I think it's true. I think...inside him, Mel's brother is just as much a prisoner of the monster as the rest of us are. I asked if there would be a way to free him instead of kill him, and Giles said there might be, but that we should probably just kill him to be safe--but I--that's not right, Zuko. If there's still an innocent soul inside him..."

[princeinexile]

"Then we are giving him an incredible gift by killing him, and not making him face down all the people he watched himself murder, molest, torture or hurt," Zuko says, voice cooly.

There was a breath; now, he understood why Sokka had trouble with it. She believed and it was easy to be swept up in her sense of compassion, her fervant passion in what she thought was true.

But he couldn't let it be, "If we save him -- what will be left, Katara? A broken little boy, who has watched his hands close around the throats of -- countless. Who nearly beat his own sister to death. Who killed me. Do you think-- he will embrace life anew?

"Do you think anyone here will believe him redeemed? Changed? Or do you think they'll come after him, regardless?"

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"At least he could take his own fate into his own hands. At least...at least the boy could apologize for what he's done and mean it, whether anyone believed him or not."

She shook her head.

"I just...I think if it's possible, someone should give him that choice."

[princeinexile]

"I think at this point in time, choices have been made. He is what he is, and we are what we are-- and we are at war, Katara-- not for land or nation, but simply for the right to survive. I'm sorry--

"But we cannot show mercy to a person who shows no quarter."

A breath, tired, "For Spirits sake, Katara, he killed me."

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

This was the part that made her close her eyes tight.



She opened her eyes to look up at him.

"But if traveling with Aang has taught me anything, it's that sometimes you have to show mercy to your enemies. You have to...to make it so that they can still make a choice."

"If Aang, hadn't..."

Zuko would have frozen to death in the snow."

She looked off to the side. "I think the problem is that...in this, we have different definitions of mercy."

[princeinexile]

A breath, slow, steady: "I never killed. Harth revels in death. I just-- wanted to go home, Katara."

It wasn't te same. It just wasn't. He fought, but he left them alive. He struggled, but he never murdered, never sank to lies, deciet, backstabbing, hate--

He wasn't an animal. He had a code of honor and stuck to it.

Harth doesn't; Harth can't.

"I can't trust you not to interfer in combat, Katara. You know-- I have to restrict you -- and maybe Sokka now, too, for following your lead. I can't-- trust you anymore."

And that was upsetting, and frustrating,but -- regrettably necessary.

"Don't make me build you a cage, Katara. To keep these people safe. I will, if I must."

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"You want to imprison a little boy for life, even if your reason was a good one, Zuko," she said, and she shook her head. "In his own way, Harth thinks he's doing good--he thinks this is all some big story, and Mel is the heroine. He thinks he has to be a threat to make her stronger--powerful. He's insane. But he didn't choose to be that way. I think he's had less choice than most people--the demon in him's been making all the choices."

She took a deep breath.

"But you're right, that you can't trust me anymore. And I won't be a prisoner in my own home."

She looked down.

"That's why I think I should leave."

[princeinexile]

Zuko blinked quietly --did she just -- no. She didn't.

...yes she did.

"And who will lead others in from the rain? Who will help purify water, work the gardens, heal the wounded?" Zuko asked, voice tense as he rose. "Who will be there for Sokka? What about Jim? What about Aang?"

Oh, he was-- trying to understand first, but this?

This just made him angry.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"I'll still lead people in from the rain. I'll still try to bring people in before he can get them, I haven't purified the water since Harper made his machines, and he can make machines to care for the gardens. And you have plenty of other healers."

She looked up at him, her expression rueful but defiant. "Aang, Sokka, and Jim would be better off if I weren't here, because if this happens, if we have another chance to kill Harth...I'll do the same thing. I'll try to trap him instead."

[princeinexile]

"You're putting him before-- the entire complex. All of these lives, Katara-- You-- you have the gall to compare us-- compare me to him--"

And then he was moving--his hands were on his shirt, and he dragged it up, over his chest, till it was off and THREW it at her. Scars criss-crossed his skin--

the lash

-- but burns marked his flesh here and there --

hot pokers

--and mangled hands spread, gesturing--

bolt cutters, trimmers

--they were still missing fingernails, not yet totally grown back--

needles under then, hot and sharp

--and he looked at her, maimed, marked, crippled--

a sledge hammer to the knees

and he said, "Are you going to do this to him, when you trap him? Are you going to mark him? THIS is Harth's compassion, Katara! THIS is his kindness and mercy! My choice was to suffer -- because if I didn't, he would turn everything he did to me to Kaylee Frye. She huddled in the room and she cried, Katara!"

And he stands there, trembling, stripped to the waist, angry and shocked. "This is the cost of compassion."

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"That was the monster in him, Zuko, not his spirit--they are two. Different. Things," she said, but she looked away, her eyes squeezing shut.

[princeinexile]

"Unacceptable!"

Zuko barked it out, raw, angry-- hurt, too. How could she?

"You won't be leaving this room until tonight," he says, and points to a chair. "Sit. You'll wait for the meeting tonight, and then..."

Then, her home becomes her prison.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

She sat, silently, head hanging.

[princeinexile]

Zuko hobbled over to pull on his shirt, before he said, "...you're lucky I'm not my father--or you'd have a scar to match mine," he says simply. "You disrespect me, you disrepect every one in this buuilding. Somehow, we will teach you otherwise..."

"But at least I won't do it with flame and exile."

That was something.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

She didn't answer.

[princeinexile]

There was no need.

He didn't expect one.

He waited, then, in silence for people to arrive.