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Katara did not rise with the sun.
She was built for snoozing under a Southern sunrise; bundled up and toasty under too many furs, until the smell of bubbling breakfast lured her from her hut. Back home, the morning meal had been one of few duties that Gran Gran had had the mercy to spare her. Due to his sheer brotherly indignation, Sokka had also been allowed this luxury, though he'd still be snoring long before Katara even settled down for the night.
As a waterbender she'd treasured the late nights that she was allowed, sat gazing upwards under the moon; feeling its light hum in her veins. If the wind or the chill ever got so intense that she was chased inside, the energy would keep her tossing and turning for hours. Instead, she'd sit up by lantern light and think, driving away all thoughts of her ordinary, monotonous life of chores and picking up after her brother. In her head she would dream up as many wild adventures as her limited world of ice and snow could fathom.
Often, the mysterious, mythical Avatar was the vague, blurry-edged hero of these imaginings. Gran Gran's detached, unromantic stories of the old world had churned and swirled in her restless, racing thoughts. Sensational tales of a selfless, handsome, benevolent hero upstaged the passionless descriptions of an elderly monk who'd rather vanish from the face of the Earth than protect the people who needed him.
Under the dimming lamp-light, he'd come blazing into being, the ground shaking and the tides braying at his call. Shapeless creatures of black and red would scatter before him, and darkness would be driven out at last. He'd be someone you could depend on, someone who wouldn't run and hide.
Such dreams seemed girlish and naive under the harsh light of day. So she'd dreamt them under dawn's gentle glow,
Eventually, she'd always had to wake up.
Even when her dreams and reality had inconceivably crossed over and clashed like a wave cresting on a storm-weathered berg. She'd found the Avatar, and now she was on an adventure such as her wildest musings could not have thought up, a mission to save the world from the poison of fire and tyranny.
And yet the chores continued.
Katara did not rise with the sun… Until one year ago.
There it was, painting the insides of her eyelids red and orange. She turned over in her bed-roll. The cold of the Air temple stone and the dewy coolness of the air didn't bother her, she was of water-tribe stock and had thicker skin than that. It was the suction-like drag of exhaustion that had her groaning and pulling the worn cloth over her head. She'd slept with her braid loops in again, and now the ivory beads tugged at her scalp where they'd tangled from her sleepless fidgeting last night.
A bird or lemur chirped somewhere in the temple. Katara sighed heavily and hoisted herself up. Her joints creaked as she stretched and flexed her hands. She slept pretty exclusively in her dress now, not daring to strip down to her more comfortable wraps lest they receive any more unexpected visitors. That did mean that she generally woke up in a state of near comical dishevelment. It didn't really matter, however, as she was usually able to get herself in order before the rest of the team were up. Sometimes she was even able to steal a quick bath in one of the more secluded temple fountains. This was not nearly often enough for someone as constantly caked in sweat and dust and grime as she was.
Katara rested her elbows on her knees and massaged small circles under her eyes. Without a mirror she could tell that dark circles were forming there. Then she sat and scanned the small cluster of bedrolls.
One, two, three, four… She counted up in her head, waiting for the even rise and fall of each pair of shoulders before moving on to the next. Only once she had all six of her friends, alive and accounted for, did she push herself to her feet. She stepped over the crumpled ball that was her trousers and shoes, but made sure to retrieve her waterskin, securing it across her torso.
Gingerly, and fully aware that at least one of the sleeping figures could feel movement through her feet, she made her way to the steps that led to the temple's ramshackle kitchen. At the foot of them, there lay a long, dark mass. Katara scowled.
Seven.
Of course he preferred sleeping at the fringes, it left him more room for skulking around without any of them catching on. Sokka had given him a perfectly functional room to sleep in, and yet, here he was.
It wasn't that she'd rather he'd made himself comfortable sleeping with the rest, as if he belonged there, as if he were one of them. She'd rather he weren't there at all.
Passing the sleeping prince as she approached the stairs, she couldn't help keeping her eyes trained on him. At first she told herself that she was searching for threats, a concealed dagger or a grenade or something. Then she remembered that the boy could shoot fire from his hands. So instead she focussed on checking he was still alive, as she had for all the others. The blanket around his torso rose and fell… and rose and fell… several times actually, and still Katara just stared at him, stopping on her way up the steps, just before he fell out of sight.
Who was she kidding, when else would she get an opportunity like this? She padded a couple of steps backwards.
Zuko slept curled up on his side, wearing just the dusty red tunic and trousers that went under his ornate, maroon vest. His breathing was shallow and not nearly as long or even as the others. Katara supposed it made sense for someone like him to be a light sleeper.
When Zuko was awake, all Katara saw when she looked at him was the fearsome, callous, marauding firebender who'd done her and her friends nothing but harm.
With his amber eyes on her she felt nothing but hurt and resentment. Mostly because there had been a moment when she'd seen something in them that had shaken her to her core. When all her own pain and anger and loneliness had been reflected back at her, in a way that she'd never seen in another's face.
Katara had been betrayed before and since. By Jet, by the Dai Li, by Hama; friends, allies. Yet, somehow this boy, her enemy had cut deeper than any of them. And it was all right there, in the eyes that sought her out, no matter how much she avoided their gaze. She wouldn't let him trick her again.
It was safer to catch this moment now. Sleeping Zuko was a new, strange creature, about whom she found herself immensely curious.
He looked younger.
Katara had never really let herself dwell on Zuko's age until their paths had crossed in the Earth Kingdom. Before then he'd just been another Fire Nation soldier, burning everything in his path without remorse. Then she'd seen him without the armour, unruly black hair softening the severe lines of his face. After that, she'd noticed how adults towered over him, how the ill-fitting clothes he wore hung off of his gangly frame. Time had passed since then, and however old he was now, Katara was sure he'd gotten taller. Where before his thinness had seemed unsuiting and new, he had now grown into it somewhat.
From that deeply buried, annoying corner of Katara's head, a judgement came spiriting unbidden into her mind: Zuko was actually kind of… handsome.
And in the split second before she stopped that train of thought in its tracks, she couldn't help but give it a little consideration. He certainly looked different to any other boy she'd met before, even in spite of the obvious. In fairness, excepting the last year, her experience of boys her own age had been limited exclusively to her brother. She wasn't exactly an expert on what made one good looking or bad looking. She'd liked Haru when they'd first met (before the brown, hairy caterpillars had taken up permanent residence on his upper lip); and then of course, there'd been Jet, with all his roguish charm.
She supposed Aang counted, although, contrary to what he so vocally wanted, she just couldn't think about him that way. Not seriously at least. In months past she'd tried to play the part, tried to turn him into the heroic avatar of her dreams. And yet, while not an aged, selfish coward, he wasn't the wise, reliable leader of her childhood romances either, no matter how many monastic proverbs he parrotted to her. It wasn't fair of her to care for him for what she wished he was.
In essence, Katara's frame of reference was not particularly extensive. It wasn't like she was attracted to Zuko. Not at all. But from the viewpoint of a completely ambivalent, uninvolved observer, in a purely aesthetic, objective way, he could be described as attract ive.
Ultimately Katara came to the conclusion that obviously Zuko was handsome, he was a prince . He was practically grown to look good. Fire Nation propaganda, that's what it was. It wasn't that she found him attractive, it was just the enemy manipulating her with their malicious mind games.
Within this reel of very sound reasoning, she realised that, lying as he was on his right side, she couldn't see the scar. He lay with it against the temple floor.
That can't possibly be comfortable , she was just thinking to herself, when the subject of her judgement stirred in his sleep.
Discretion was nearly forgotten as she sped up the last of the steps as quickly as her feet would dare. She made it into the kitchen, where she turned and hid behind the door frame.
Right , she leaned her head back so that her scalp pressed against the wall, breakfast.
She was just retrieving the nearly rusted iron skillet from where she'd been keeping it, when the light streaming in from the doorway was blocked out over her shoulder.
In a single motion, she pivoted, dropped the skillet in her hand and sent a stream of water flying from her waterskin in the direction of the intruder. It froze in the shape of a single, large dagger of ice, that went careening with such force into the stone of the doorframe, that it split the joins between the massive blocks with a screeching crack and stuck there.
An inch from Zuko's head.
The cacophony from the skillet hitting the floor clattered into silence. He stood frozen in place, eyes looking sidelong at the splintering projectile, one bare foot inside the kitchen and the other on the top step.
"Uh. Hi." Ugh, he already sounded guilty. "Is there something wrong?"
To that she raised her eyebrows pointedly toward him. He just looked back, a mask of near cluelessness. Katara rolled her eyes. This was why he was easier to deal with when he was asleep
"Well, my aim's usually a lot more on point than that." She gestured to the icicle that had started to drip with a soft tap, tap, tap. With a wave of her hand she pulled it from the wall and returned it to her waterskin, turning back around.
Why her? Why did she have to deal with him? This must be some divine punishment for all the stopping and looking and thinking.
"Yeah, I know." His voice came from behind her, still only halfway inside the room. "I was wondering why you were awake."
"Why are you awake?" She countered, irritated, mostly with him but also a little with the fact that she couldn't remember what she'd been about to do. The intrusion had distracted her and now she groped aimlessly for anything that would allow her to avoid this conversation.
Something cold and metal jolted her out of her confusion as it tapped her arm. Zuko stood at her elbow, holding the skillet sheepishly out to her.
Right. Breakfast.
Sparing a moment to glare up at him, she took it. He at least had the awareness to step away from her once it had left his hand.
"Thank you." She just managed to bite out, her tone clipped. There was sleep in her eye, and she reached up to rub it as she moved across to the huge, ancient oven.
This behaviour was probably just a ruse, getting her to let her guard down to secure his own diabolical ends. Though, the diabolical ends she'd initially been imagining had grown somewhat unreasonable. If he was still trying to capture Aang, why hadn't he done so during their little Fire Nation field trip the other day? He'd followed them all the way to the Western Air Temple, why not bring an entire army and catch them sleeping? Why not set them ablaze in their beds?
Katara shoved down these questions, along with the penchant she seemed to have for morbid schemes. It didn't matter what he was planning, Katara would be ready when it was brought to light.
"I was looking for something to eat." Zuko said behind her as she started arranging the scant kindling on the oven-top. The arduous task of heading to the woods to gather more settled on Katara's shoulders. She supposed today wouldn't be a bath day. Wrinkling her nose at the prospect of another day feeling this grubby turned her tone less than charitable as she whirled on her idle interloper.
"Well I'm so sorry, your Highness, you're just gonna have to wait a little longer while us feeble peasants prepare you something to nibble on." Even she didn't like the high, sarcastic voice she'd affected. For the first time that morning, Zuko frowned at her. She would have liked to have enjoyed his displeasure more, but her words tasted sour in her mouth.
"I'll get it myself." This declaration came with a sense of reserved intent that had Katara waving a dry twig in his direction, despite the fact that he clearly didn't know what he was looking for.
"If you have to be here, you're gonna have your breakfast rationed just like everyone else. Now, move out of my way and let me get started." Zuko had never actually been in her way, and as she bustled past him she realised that the ladle she wanted was on his other side. He didn't seem to notice her backpedalling, however, as he was busy staring at the skillet where it sat on the oven top; brows screwed up as if he were struggling with an equation.
She had made up her mind to ignore him when he spoke again,
" You make breakfast?" Now he was pushing it.
"Who else?" She replied, not disguising her incredulity. Rather pointedly, she mounted the makeshift ladder she'd cobbled together to reach the foodstore. The door was stiff from the roots of fiercely overgrown foliage, but Katara knew that there wasn't enough to allow for scavenging, so here was where their stash was kept. Muchlike with the kindling, Katara groaned slightly when she realised how much their rice stores had depleted. She'd have to find somewhere relatively safe to do some shopping. Though where she'd get the money for that was another headache all on its own.
It was too early for this.
"I figured-" Why are you still here? "-everyone made their own." This time Katara actually scoffed.
"Yeah, this group, very funny." Katara tried to picture Aang, Toph and her brother attempting to produce something edible and actually shuddered.
At last she spotted what she'd been looking for, and narrowly avoided screaming. Why? Why did she ask Sokka to put something away? He'd been gallant enough to help her carry the oakapples from the leigh they'd picked them from. But when left to stow them while Katara had checked on Toph's feet, he'd conveniently forgotten the fact that the person who'd be getting them out again lacked a good few inches off his height. These few inches it seems he had used specifically to slide the fruit baskets onto the tallest possible shelf in the foodstore.
Great. That was just great.
She was tired, she was grimy, and now she had to traipse back across the temple to fetch the materials to extend her ladder. Down she stormed, marching across the oval of the kitchen floor. She passed Zuko closely, too annoyed to bother skirting around him.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, leaning out of her warpath.
“You are!” She exclaimed over her shoulder, any thoughts of fairness or reason forgotten, replaced entirely by the blind rage of a girl running on no food and maybe three hours of sleep. “All you huge, too tall teenage boys who just have to make things difficult! Never thinking about anyone except yourselves; always having to put the basket just that little bit further out of reach!” Her hands gesticulated wildly before her, and she felt the contents of her waterskin jump and churn in response. "Not caring who might want the basket, who you're hurting when you make it difficult!"
“Hey, wait-”
“No, I have chores to be doing, why don’t you go find something small and innocent to set on fire, or a river you can jump into-”
“Katara.”
Her name sounded new and strange, spoken in Zuko's raised but not aggressive tone. Had she ever heard him say her name before?
It was enough to make her pause in the doorway, but when she spun round to face him she had her eyes narrowed and her fists on her hips. Her retort died on her lips, however.
Zuko stood at the base of her ladder, a look of mingled surprise and caution on his face, as though he hadn't really expected her to turn back. In his arms he held one of the baskets of fruit.
Oh.
He hadn't even used the ladder had he.
There was a moment during which Katara wasn't sure whether or not to just keep going to make a statement. But she was sure that her rant had probably woken at least one of the others, or at least sped along the process. If she didn't cook the apples now, she'd set everyone back, as they would have to wait around while she got it all ready. Zuko just stood there, holding them out to her.
With a somewhat subdued huff, she returned to the side of the foodstore, and took the basket from Zuko. Her cheeks warmed slightly doing so.
"Thank you." She ground out for the second time today. At this rate she'd be thanking him for the courtesy of being alive.
"No problem." A deeply uncomfortable silence settled around them."Do you… need anything else?" Zuko asked, and it was evident that this was not a question he was frequently in the habit of asking.
The 'no' came automatically and was on the tip of her tongue before- out of the corner of her eye- she noted the depressingly small bundle of twigs on the oven top. They were supposed to fry the apples enough to make them edible. An idea began to form.
She hesitated, unused to answering that question with anything other than kind dismissals.
"How long can you keep a flame going in your hand?"
Zuko raised his one eyebrow.
Minutes later, Katara had him perched on the countertop, a small but wide flame hovering in his right hand, while he held the slowly warming skillet just above it in his left. A smug smile had found its way onto Katara's face at the sight of the once intimidating fire prince cooking in his sleepwear, and it stayed there as she prepped the sliced apples.
Contrary to what she'd maybe expected, he'd been a perfectly willing makeshift stove. She watched as he sat, eyes staring off into the middle distance, tapping his bare feet against each other absently.
What was his deal? Where was the reliably restless, aggravated jerk who'd dangled her mother's necklace in front of her face like a toy; who'd manhandled her grandmother and chased her from pole to pole? The stranger to her right came off kinda awkward and self-deprecating; easily-irritated still but in a way that was more boyish and vulnerable than threatening.
She'd technically always known he was around her age, but she'd never seen him act like it before.
The question slipped the confines of her internal monologue like a buttered rat-weasel,
"How old are you?"
Zuko's leg stopped swinging just as Katara physically bit down on her tongue. He looked as bemused as she was. She let the question hang there between them. Well, she'd been wanting to know for nearly a year, and she'd asked now, might as well get the answer.
He seemed to think for a moment.
"It's been over a week since the battle?" He asked, seriously.
Katara was embarrassed that she had to count up in her head before answering. Since they'd arrived here the days had started blurring together. But the day of the battle was one that stood out in her memory. She nodded.
"Then I'm seventeen." Huh, somehow that was both surprising and seemed right. Although, if that depended on when the battle was…
"You've had a birthday since then?" Her voice perhaps came off more judgemental than originally intended. Zuko shrugged.
"I'm not entirely sure which day it was, but I knew it was going to be within a week of the eclipse." A tongue of the fire in his hand twirled upwards, drawing both of their attention. She was still staring down at his hands when he asked, very sheepishly, "how old are you?"
Not entirely sure how this was a conversation they were having right now, Katara went back to slicing the apples.
"Fifteen. Since just before Winter, while we were in the Northern Water tribe. I kept it to myself cos they seem to think fifteen is an appropriately marriageable age up there." Finishing her chopping, Katara set about methodically laying them in the hot pan. They sizzled nicely, he made a very good stove. "I'm not sure I really have the time for a husband right now. Would get in the way of all my running-for-my-life time." She finished sardonically.
Then something happened that had Katara jumping out of her skin.
Zuko laughed.
Not loudly, not heartily (Katara wasn't sure he was capable of laughing heartily), not in any way that should startle. Just a short chuckle, as though she'd said something funny. She hadn't been trying to be funny, or maybe she had, but people didn't usually laugh when she made sarcastic comments.
She placed the last couple of slices with caution, suspicious and slightly disturbed by the prospect of what he'd pull next.
She started to imagine: Zuko telling jokes? Zuko making tea? Zuko discussing his thoughts on the theatre? All things Zuko should not be doing. If there were a volcano nearby, she'd have trouble believing it hadn't frozen over.
Now another sound had fallen over them, not the disconcerting silence that had sucked the air from the room earlier; but a soft, tentative quiet. The simmer of the oakapples; the chirp of that talkative bird that had gotten her up in in the first place; the sound of Zuko's breathing and the tap of his foot on the stone hearth.
It was almost peaceful.
She would have been content to just linger in this stillness, but he just had to say something. He spoke softly, so the effect was not completely shattered, but Katara absolutely refused to let his voice be associated with a sense of calm.
"Uh, how old are the others?"
"Not sure what difference that would make to you" She sniped, though her heart wasn't in it at all. The overall sense of domesticity that surrounded her battled with her pride. She didn't trust Zuko, she didn't forgive Zuko, she wasn't friends with Zuko. Though, however much she could tell herself she didn't want any of those things, that deep, treacherous part of herself knew it was a lie.
Zuko frowned again, but still seemed to expect her to answer. Maybe it was that annoying part that turned the tide against her stubbornness and let her do so, though she tried to keep an edge in her voice.
"Well, I don't know about everyone, but Sokka and Haru are sixteen and I think Toph's either twelve or thirteen." It dawned on her that she should probably ask the earthbender her age, they'd known each other nearly a year. She smirked as she thought about the final member of the gang, "Aang's gonna be a hundred and thirteen soon."
She couldn't help watching for Zuko's reaction, but his face remained serious and interested. He nodded when he realised she'd finished speaking, saying simply,
"Right."
"Technically, he'll only be thirteen."
"Yes."
Katara hoped she was there when Sokka told him the Yue story. Some kind of reaction to the completely insane state of reality would be very satisfying.
In the middle of gaping at him, Katara realised that the apple slices were heading for the other side of well done.
"Okay, you can turn off the fire now." She said, reaching to take the skillet from him. As she did so she was forced to slide her hand over Zuko's so that she didn't burn herself on the hot metal. When he flinched slightly at the contact, Katara tried to bite down the mix of dismay and irritation. It wasn't as though she was threatening him. As much as she didn't like it, Toph had a point: Aang needed a firebending teacher. He now had less than two months to become a master, and since their little field trip, he'd been progressing in leaps and bounds.
So, yeah, she had flung a razor sharp icicle at his head, but he knew she wouldn't actually hurt him. Didn't he?
You make one step backward, one slip up, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore.
Maybe not.
His face remained impassive, watching her hands carefully, as if he were seeing them for the first time. It had been a particularly humid night, so her arm guards and gloves were over with her stuff. Extinguishing the flame with a short shake of his hand, and letting the skillet handle slip into her grasp, he pushed himself off of the counter.
For a moment he looked as though he was going to leave, and Katara confused herself with how much she didn't want him to. I don't want him to go skulking around by himself in case he tries anything, she told herself, but at the same time she was actively searching her imagination for things to talk about. Somehow his presence had managed to fill an otherwise lonely, empty space. She wasn't forgiving him for what he'd done, just… The company was nice. You could like hanging out with someone and still despise them, right?
She went back to the counter, where she set down the skillet and began busying herself with the bowls while its contents cooled; just to give her hands something to do. She did this facing the grey stone of the kitchen wall, but she could tell that Zuko was still there.
"You should add sweet-onions to them. It makes them less salty." Katara froze completely. Then she brought up her hand, closed her eyes and pinched herself, angling her body to face the room. When she opened her eyes and Zuko just blinked back at her, she could be absolutely sure that the world had turned on its head. His right cheek turned almost the same shade as his left,
"That's what my uncle used to do, anyway."
It was her turn to say something, something clever and snippy. Instead her mouth opened and shut over and over like an outraged koi.
In the end, she just went back to the job at hand. It was less confusing and significantly less difficult to look directly at than the boy behind her. Back came the silence, surging softly, but unable to suffocate her the way it had before.
When Zuko had snuck up on her earlier, she'd heard nothing. Now the light tap of footsteps on stone found her, and she knew he was gone before she even turned to look.
The morning's stress must have, if not receded, been pacified somehow. Her thoughts circled inside her head languidly, like birds over a clear, calm sea. In the depths lay rage, regret and disappointment; a sadness like tar at its bed. Above these things her mind now drifted, with the kind of empty patterns that can only come from the mingling of deep exhaustion and cautious- yet pleasant- confusion.
Sweet-onions? She mused, internally, placing down the eighth bowl in a neat row. What would Zuko's uncle know about food? Perhaps this was a trick. For a minute she oscillated from a mean joke to 'he's trying to poison us.' Then her eyes slid back to the foodstore. They still had a couple of sweet-onions…
It took maybe ten minutes to dig them out, chop them, and add a good amount to the food; and then another five for her to realise everything was done. With the urgency of both the kindling and the ladder completely negated, it dawned on Katara that she might have time for that bath after all. If she left it warm in the skillet, she could be back in 15 minutes or so and it should still be warm enough to distribute into portions.
Struggling not to get her hopes up, she tiptoed to the top of the staircase, looking for the rousing stretches and waking grumbles among the clustered bedrolls. But there were none. In the gradually climbing daylight she found six sleeping forms. Glancing back at the line of bowls, she felt the first flicker of actual relief that she'd felt in a while.
Zuko was nowhere to be seen as she descended to the camp again. Suspicion raised its eyebrows, but Katara actually found it easy to believe that he was probably just getting ready to train Aang. Perhaps that was the fatigue talking. Her guard wasn't just lowered, it was asleep on the job. Maybe she'd come to regret that. Maybe he was up to some nefarious scheming, distracting her with his tallness and his laughter and his sweet-onions and then rearing to strike. But for now the whole terrible world seemed slightly more alright in Katara's eyes. She tiptoed through the sleeping figures and retrieved the rest of her clothes.
The fountain she generally used both for washing and training was a bit of a trek from the main chamber where they ate and slept, but it was worth it for the brief but precious privacy it afforded.
Putting down her things and stripping down to her undergarments, she reached out to try something new she'd been working on. It made sense that, if she could make water cold enough to freeze as a novice, then surely she could warm it up as a master. She turned her hands over and over a couple of times above it. As it had when she'd experimented on her tea, it swirled under her hand and a couple of bubbles even formed. When she submerged her hand, however, it was only just over lukewarm. Close enough.
She'd been spoiled in Ba Sing Se by their steaming baths and spa-houses. Back home you were lucky if the water you washed with was warmer than the snow outside.
It didn't take long to clean herself off, not with waterbending. The feeling of maybe a week's worth of sweat, grease and dust being washed away was close to heavenly. She did wince, however, as she removed the beads and pins from her hair, letting the whole of it fall loose. She'd have to stop sleeping with her loops in. Carefully, they were put on the fountains side with her mother's necklace.
A sigh was pressed from her lungs as she relaxed into the water. The gentle trickle of the fountain above her splashed her face softly. Rosy-fingered dawn had climbed the clouds so that sunlight streamed warm over her shoulders. Tiredness hung off her eyelashes, drawing them down to rest on her cheeks. She leaned her head back on the worn stone and inhaled deeply.
When she lurched awake, the sun was high in the sky.
Oh monkeyfeathers!
It must have been an hour at the least. Springing to her feet, she drew the water from her hair and body with a wave of her arm. She then did the same with her clothes which she'd been soaking. They were stiff as a board and bone dry when she pulled them back on, but she didn't notice, as the moment she'd snatched up her necklace, she was running toward the kitchen.
The first one she saw was Toph, reclining in her self-constructed dirt lounger.
"Sorry, I'm here. I'll go bring food out."
"Too late, sweetness." She held up the pair of chopsticks in her fingers. Between them was a steaming piece of oakapple.
"What?"
"Good call on the sweet-onions." Squinting at Toph's hands, Katara recognised one of the bowls she'd left on the side over an hour ago, now half-filled with white-golden fruit. She'd been sure they would have turned to inedible cold mush since she'd been so long, but they looked pleasant enough.
"Did you get that yourself?" She asked. The last time she'd neglected to have breakfast ready when they woke up, they'd simply gotten on with their day and groaned about it when she got back.
"Nah, Spice-king handed them out before we woke up." A mildly sadistic grin alighted the earthbender's face, "Sokka almost stuck his entire foot in his."
"Spice-king?"
"Katara!" She didn't get an answer from Toph, as Aang came bounding over, jumping the last few yards. "Where were you? Zuko just said you were fine and not to go looking for you."
"I am fine Aang, I was just- wait, Zuko?"
"Yeah, he's in a better mood than usual, he even said I could take as long as I wanted to eat, but I'm pretty sure he's gonna come get me soon." Katara was definitely less drained after impromptu nap, but not quite enough so for Aang's chattering. She nodded and smiled kindly, but started heading toward her things.
If Zuko had served the breakfast, that explained why it was still steaming. What was confusing her now was… Zuko serving breakfast. This was why when she reached her own bed-roll, she just stared at the bowl left beside her pillow.
"Oh yeah," chirped Aang at her elbow, "Sokka wasn't happy when he saw that you'd gotten more than he did. Zuko just told him to shut up and deal with it." At least that sounded like Zuko. The 'shut up' part, not the giving her a larger portion of food part. That was headache-inducingly confusing. "I actually finished mine a minute ago. Do you wanna go check out the echo chamber with me?" She sat down heavily.
"That sounds great, Aang, but you should really go finish your lesson with Zuko." The corners of Aang's mouth turned down disappointedly.
"Fine, but he's being weird."
Yeah, tell me about it, she thought, watching him run off. After a minute she picked up the bowl, and had to adjust it in her hand as it was a little too hot to hold.
The contents had softened slightly, but that wasn't a problem since it was still warm. Zuko must have done some kind of firebender trickery on it. Her pair of chopsticks had been taken from the kitchen and placed over it.
They were probably playing a big joke on her. It wasn't funny. She had her reasons for not trusting him, she had her reasons for not liking him. Zuko had hurt them. He'd hurt her . Aggressive, hateful, violent. Her enemy.
But the boy who'd picked up the skillet when she'd dropped it; and gingerly offered culinary advice; and pacified the rabble of hungry friends while she'd taken a little time for herself? He wasn't any of those things.
Was he then merely a mystery, a stranger?
No, that didn't fit either. Zuko had never really been a stranger. He'd been Zuko. He'd been the Firebender of her childhood nightmares, the threat at the tail of all their adventures; the figure lurking in the back of her mind. Then after Ba Sing Se he'd been the traitor… And the boy who'd lost his mother. But now? He wasn't her enemy, but he definitely wasn't her friend.
No matter what, Zuko had always been someone to her, but since he'd shown up on their doorstep in all his awkward glory, she'd been tying herself in knots trying to figure out who that someone was.
The thought made her scowl. The grumbles inside her head must have somehow translated to her stomach, as from it there came an audible growl.
Shaking away the world of musings she'd almost gotten lost in, she picked up her chopsticks and brought a good sized chunk of apple and onion to her nose. It smelt peculiar: Smokey and saccharine all at once. She took a first bite, and her eyes widened. It was so much better than the sharp flavour she usually ended up with, significantly less… salty. Toph had been right, it had been a good call. She dug in with fervour. She was just on the edge of tipping the whole thing into her mouth when a flash of red against the grey of the surroundings caught her eye.
He was getting something from the unpacked pile he'd brought from his war balloon and since just left in a heap by the wall. He was a little distance from her but she knew he was looking her way. Ignoring his presence, she kept eating, trying to conceal how much she was enjoying the meal. In her peripheral vision, he did what he'd come to do and started walking away again. Only then, when she was sure he wasn't looking, she snuck a suspicious glance. With the unscathed part of his face toward her, he kept his gaze forward. But she could see he was smiling.
Her anger swelled, like a wave in the calm. He was Zuko. He wasn't welcome here. Then again, however, this morning had been the easiest that a morning had been for a while.
Perhaps rising with the sun wasn't so bad.