The Warrior's Gambit (Zutara)

IV

Katara hit the dusty floor of the training ground, her chin smacking against the ground. She tasted copper in her mouth and reached a finger up to feel a small cut on her lip where her tooth had gnashed against her mouth.

"If that's the best you can do, Fire Lord Ozai will send you back to the Southern Water Tribe in a Pai Sho tile box," Master Pakku said dismissively. Katara felt the aching in her bones and stood, despite how much she wanted to remain on the ground just a few moments longer. Her bones felt like jelly and her whole body quivered, but deep down she knew Pakku was correct. If she went up against Ozai or Azula in the competition, at this stage of her training, she would hardly last past a minute. She needed to train. She needed to be ready.

Pakku turned back around, his head tilting as he watched Katara steady herself. She ran her thumb over her forehead, gathering the sweat that pooled there, and pressed it to her lip for just a second. Not long enough to heal it completely, but enough to stop the bleeding, clot the blood, and encourage the start of scabbing.

"Again," Katara asked, her voice rough.

Katara was pleased when Pakku looked at her with approval.

"You have the fortitude of a warrior." Pakku nodded to her, pleasure in his quirk of a smile. "At least, for now."

Pakku held little back. Of this, Katara was eternally grateful. She didn't need someone like Zuko, who was worried about hurting her all the time, she needed a teacher that was honest with her about the brutality of Agni Kais, or other matches she might go up against in the future.

She only had to bother Pakku about eighteen times before he caved, giving their first lesson a little over three days ago. He'd declared Katara not completely incompetent, which for a girl was an over-the moon compliment, and said they'd meet daily until the competition. Katara was thrilled.

She learned very quickly that while Pakku was indeed a master of his bending, his teaching style was unexpected. It was complete, and Katara felt like she'd gleaned more from him than she would have gotten by herself in years of fumbling, but a straightforward teacher he was not.

What he preferred to do was scrimmage and have Katara watch him to copy his movements mid-battle, to take the information and internalize it. There had been no 'step one, step two, step three' and so on about how to produce a proper water whip, and he hadn't started out by seeing what Katara already knew. He only ever stepped in to correct a stance if Katara was really and truly failing, but he almost never said anything otherwise.

The first day, he'd had a comment. "You fight like an untrained penguin-seal. Your movements are hardly graceful, and you attack like someone is going to steal your last leg of meat."

He'd said it with a such a pretentious sneer that Katara couldn't help but take offense.

"Well, I've never had a teacher," she'd snapped back. "Everything I've learned I've done myself, so if you have a problem with it-"

"I never said it was a bad thing." Pakku had cut her off with a smirk. As Katara had been left with her jaw hanging open, trying to figure out what this meant, he'd simply moved on.

Three days in, Katara wasn't sure she completely understood, but she thought maybe she was starting to get the idea. While there was a grace and perfection to the way that Pakku waterbended, Katara's movements were unexpected and hard to predict. He'd shown her this when he'd begun to use Katara's own movements against her. Katara had been waiting for the proper waterbending moves, and though she recognized the hobbled-together foot dance of her own style, she was still unprepared to face it. When Pakku had knocked her off her feet (a phenomenon that was happening a lot lately) and she'd gotten back up with a grin, she knew that Pakku realized she 'got it'.