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"Tell me you didn't." The words were accompanied by a desperate yet tired sigh. "Please, Sokka, tell me that you didn't lose the dice that I gave to you," Zuko was this close to losing his mind thanks to the guy.
"I mean, I didn't lose them, per se," Sokka was wildly gesturing as he said so. He knew that he was in trouble.
"But?"
"You never said they were important?"
"Sokka. For the life of me, are you really that dumb or are you just pretending?" With a glance at the guy's face, he immediately put up his hand to silence the other from answering. "You know what? Don't answer that. What did you do with the dice?"
"I didn’t know they were important, so I sold them to a dragon." The sentence was rushed, in hope that Zuko wouldn't hear him. Too bad that things never went as he planned.
"You did WHAT?"
"I... sold them to a dragon," he mumbled, "I got a ton of coins for it though!" And with that, he presented a small leather pouch filled with gold coins, which only elicited another sigh from the guy clad in red. "It's not about the money, Sokka! Those dice were an important part of our quest, you dumb idiot-"
A sneeze broke his lecture, saving Sokka from the hell that was about to be set loose upon him. Zuko drew his dagger at the sound, pointing it towards the culprit. ...Which was Aang. How he managed to stay out of the two's sight, not making a sound, was a riddle, but he wasn't as lucky anymore. Zuko lowered his dagger and put it back in his waistbelt.
"And where were you when he sold the dice? I thought you two were together! That's why I even entrusted him with the dice in the first place!" he said gesturing to an offended Sokka.
Aang grinned at him sheepishly, which wasn't a good sign in Zuko's mind. "So, uh... Don't get mad..." he started. Oh no. Zuko had the feeling that this might've even been worse than what Sokka did by the way Aang looked. Was it even possible to have done something worse than losing the dice, one of the key points of succeeding their quest? Trust it to Aang.
"I... might have stolen the dragon's egg?" he said with a guilty grin.
Zuko felt his blood run cold before the boiling heat of his anger came setting in full force. Flames engulfed his hands. There went their only option to get the dice back. They couldn't trade with the dragon again. Especially not once they'd notice their egg to be gone. It wouldn't have been easy to get the dice back without this inconvenience, but now it was impossible!
"You stole the dragon's egg?!"
Why did he decide to join a party with these two dumbasses? Or rather, why did he consider them his friends? Zuko didn't know.
In truth, he did know; they all helped each other through some tough times. Not only that, but they also had had some fun scenarios together when getting stuck in weird encounters. He wouldn't exchange the two for anything in the world. ...Though he was highly considering to trade them for the dice so he could finally finish this damn quest.