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Sunlight peaked through the window of the Fire Lady’s chambers and coated the Fire Lord and Lady in its warmth. Zuko rolled over onto his back and took a deep breath as he stretched his arm over his head. He arched his back as his body awakened from its slumber. The sheets were soft and warm as he basked in the morning sun, and glanced over at the sleeping form beside him. Katara was wrapped up in the sheets on her side of the bed as she slept like a log. Zuko smiled as he watched her side rise and fall with every breath she took.
He scooted closer to Katara, and leaned over and nuzzled into the crook of her neck. He pressed a few kisses to her warm skin, and Katara sighed in the midst of her deep sleep. Of course she would want to cling to every moment of sleep she could muster before she had to wake up and face the day with all the meetings and humanitarian work that kept her busy throughout all hours of the day. Zuko furrowed his brow as he kissed her shoulderblade. Why did a meeting sound familiar? Did Katara have a meeting this morning…? Oh. Oh no. He had a meeting this morning. That he was supposed to be in thirty minutes ago.
“Oh, monkey feathers!” Zuko cursed.
He flung the covers off of himself as he leaped out of bed. A shiver went up his spine as the air swirled around his bare form. He bounded towards the door, and then realized that he was as naked as the day he was born. His mind was as scattered as the clothes he and Katara had shed the night before.
Zuko grabbed his pants that had been discarded on the floor since last night. Katara’s fingers had stroked down his waist and fiddled with the fabric until he had been begging for her to just rip them off of him. Zuko shook his head and chucked the memory out of his mind; he could not get distracted right now, however amazing that distraction was. He hopped on one foot as he shimmied his leg into his pants, and tumbled face first onto the floor with a grunt. He flailed on the floor and got his other leg into his pants before he jumped back up and glanced at Katara. She was still snoozing peacefully, and he sighed in relief.
Zuko grabbed his shoes and headpiece as well as the shirt that was sprawled onto the table. He wrapped the shirt around himself and tied the sash haphazardly around himself as he stomped himself into his boots and tied his crown into his hair as best he could without a mirror. Once he was dressed enough, he burst out of the Fire Lady’s chambers and bounded down the hallway, and caught a few servants by surprise with his speed and adrenaline rush.
“Jiro!” Zuko shouted as he stomped down the hallway towards his right-hand man once he was in sight.
Jiro turned around as Zuko’s voice boomed across the hallway, and his eyes widened as the Fire Lord charged at him like an enraged Khomodo rhino. He couldn’t take his eyes off of him.
“I was supposed to be in a meeting about forty five minutes ago!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t any of the staff wake me up?”
“Uh, my sincerest apologies, Your Majesty,” Jiro said as he bowed. “I told the staff members not to disturb you on account that you had spent the night in Her Majesty’s chambers.”
A gruff sigh emitted from Zuko’s throat as he tucked a few strands of loose hair behind his ears. Despite the fact that he had scrambled to get ready for a meeting he was already late to, he was grateful that the staff members didn’t barge into Katara’s room while they were still sleeping.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Zuko said. “Come on, I’m already late.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Jiro said and nodded.
As Zuko trudged down the hallway towards the courtroom with Jiro at his heel, a few odd looks from the palace staff members were caught in his vision. Zuko chalked it up to him being up later than normal, and the staff members probably wondered if he was okay. However, by the tenth staff member who gave him a look like he was wearing a clown mask, Zuko grew suspicious. He couldn’t mull it over now, as he had made his way to the courtroom and he no doubt would have to face the wrath of annoyed council members. Zuko inhaled a deep breath as Jiro opened the door for him, and he puffed his chest out and stepped inside.
“Apologies for keeping you all waiting,” Zuko announced. He made his way towards his seat at the head of the table. “I hope I didn’t miss anything too important.”
“Not at all, Your Majesty. We were just about to discuss the recent developments in Yue Bay,” Councilman Kashuhito said.
Zuko sighed as he kneeled down at his place at the meeting table. “Ah, yes. I heard that their ports have been expanding further along the area,” he said. “Excellent. Hopefully that means trading will be more frequent and the economy will flourish.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Let us hope that—,”
Councilman Kashuhito’s words clogged in his throat as his gaze was locked onto Zuko, almost as if he were hypnotized. Zuko furrowed his brow as Kashuhito stared at him, and he turned his head back around in case something was behind him. All that was was a porcelain vase and a portrait of a dragon on the wall. He turned back around and eyed Councilman Kashuhito. “What? What’s the matter?” Zuko said.
“Uh, Your Majesty, you, um. . . .”
“What? Is there something on my face?” Zuko asked as he lifted his hand up to his cheek and brushed his skin in case he still had drool from sleeping so hard.
A few council members exchanged glances in between each other as all of them stumbled over their words. It was as if they had all collectively forgotten how to speak
“Well?” Zuko said. “Speak up.”
All the council members ceased their jabbering as they sat up straighter and at attention. Zuko’s face scrunched into a scowl as none of them would pipe up to tell him what was going on. General Chenjiao cleared his throat and gave Zuko a quick nod. “Nothing, Your Majesty.”
Zuko removed his hand from his face and placed it back down in his lap. “Very well,” he said as he tried to make his tone convincing. “Let us carry on, shall we?”
Zuko stepped into the sunroom located in the west wing of the palace. A wall of bookshelves was placed on the left side of the wall, and a lounge area to the right side. Golden silk curtains hung against the windows that created a sparkly hue as the light blended in with it. A familiar figure with dark brown hair with a crescent moon headpiece peeked out from the seating area, and he sighed in relief.
All the tension in Zuko’s body dissolved as his eyes basked upon Katara. She lounged on one of the couches as she had her nose in a book, The Entire History of the Geography of the Earth Kingdom, Volume 20 . The sunlight casted a glow through the window that highlighted her brown skin and hair, and her blue eyes shimmered against it. Zuko’s heart swelled as a smile pulled his lips, and he swore that Katara just kept getting more beautiful every single time he laid his eyes upon her.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said, his tone smooth like velvet.
Katara’s eyes were still focused on the book, and her lips quirked into a smile as his voice coated her ears. “Guilty,” she said as she flipped to the next page in her book. “I have a little down time before I have to do my rounds at the clinic. So, I thought I’d spend some time here. How was your meeting?”
Zuko stepped over to the window as he gazed out at the view of the palace garden. The turtleducks splashed and paddled around in the pond below. Zuko counted one, two, three, four, five turtleducks; A mom, a dad, and three babies. “It went fine, but something just felt off,” Zuko said.
“Oh yeah? Anything in particular?”
“I tried not to notice it, but all the council members kept staring at me.”
Katara snorted. “Well, that’s a given. You are the Fire Lord, after all.”
“But this was different. They were staring at me as if I had grown a second head!” Zuko said as he stepped away from the window and made his way over to the couch where Katara lounged.
“Maybe they were just that put off by your tardiness,” Katara teased.
Zuko glared at the back of her head as he crossed his arms over his chest. He flinched as his shirt pinched his armpits. “Ha ha, very funny,” he retorted. “Seriously. I haven’t had this many people staring at me since, well . . . you know.”
Katara’s heart lurched in her chest as Zuko alluded to the day his father had mutilated him. Sympathy ached in her chest as she imagined Zuko being on edge all morning because of old wounds reopening.
“Honey, I’m sure that’s not the case,” Katara said, her voice softer. She sat up as her gaze went to meet him, however her eyes stopped dead in their tracks as she soaked Zuko’s appearance in. Her brow furrowed as her eyes were as wide as porcelain bowls and her mouth pursed.
Zuko’s face contorted into a scowl as her expression was the epitome of deja vu. “See? That’s the exact look everyone has been giving me all day!” Zuko exclaimed.
A snort erupted from Katara as she threw her head back and guffawed. She clutched her stomach as her ribs ached from the sheer pressure she put on her diaphragm.
Zuko’s face contorted in a mixture of confusion and annoyance. Normally the sound of Katara’s laughter would be music to his ears, however he felt like everyone in the palace was in on a joke that he had no idea about.
“What? What is it? Tell me!” he demanded.
Katara wiped a tear from her eye as she held onto her stomach and tried to catch her breath. Laughs and giggles tumbled out of her as she couldn’t help staring at him.“Zuko, honey, have you looked down at yourself lately?” she asked as she stood up off the lounge couch.
Zuko furrowed his brow as confusion overtook any annoyance that he had. He shifted his gaze down and his eyes fell out of his head as light blue entered his vision instead of his usual dark red. The discovery crushed him like a ten ton boulder as he realized that he had grabbed Katara’s shirt off of the table in her bedroom instead of his own. The sash held it together by a thread, and his shoulders were about ready to pop out of the seams. “Oh,” he said as the sunroom became ten times hotter.
Katara cupped her hand over her mouth as she continued to giggle, and her heart fluttered in her chest at how adorable the blush on Zuko’s cheeks were. He stood like a ragdoll, as if he were to move even an inch a chasm would open up and swallow him whole. She circled around him a couple of times as she studied his appearance. “You know, blue is definitely not a bad color on you,” Katara said as she scratched her chin. Her eyes trailed him up and down as a grin tugged at her lips.”
“No wonder everyone’s been staring at me this morning,” he said. He should’ve known that it had something to do with the fact he had played roulette with his wardrobe this morning.
“I was wondering where that shirt went,” she said as she brushed her hand over his shoulder. “I’m surprised it took you that long to realize you were wearing it.”
“I was already late for my morning meeting,” Zuko said. “I didn’t exactly have time to choose my outfit.”
“Did you seriously go for an entire meeting not knowing you were wearing my clothes?” Katara chuckled.
“My mind was clouded with adrenaline!” Zuko said. “How was I supposed to know whose clothes were whose?”
“Zuko, my shirt barely fits you,” Katara said as she ran her hand down his chest. “One pushup’ll rip this thing in half. Not that I’d mind watching that, though.”
Katara grinned and bit her lip as the image of Zuko doing a push up and his tight shirt ripping because his muscles were just that strong plagued her mind. Perhaps she would take him up on that idea later, in the middle of one of their training sessions.
“Okay, okay. Get your mind outta the gutter. I still have to go back and change into my regular robes,” Zuko said.
Katara hummed as she gazed into Zuko’s eyes. “Maybe I can help you with that,” she said as she traced circles over the exposed skin of Zuko’s chest.
Zuko sighed as a full-body tingle shot through him. The image of Katara undressing him like she had done last night was too good of an opportunity to turn down; all of their obligations be damned. “I wouldn’t be opposed,” he said.
Katara’s eyes flickered up and down Zuko’s body for the umpteenth time. The sight of him was a drug and she was addicted. “You know, I gotta say, seeing you wearing my shirt is definitely doing something for me,” she said. “Lets everyone know that you’re mine.”
Blood rushed to every single part of Zuko as Katara’s words scratched an itch he didn't know he had. He sighed as Katara ran her hands across his chest and shoulders, and her shirt constricted him even more. He scoffed. “Please. Like I need to wear your clothes for everyone to know I’m yours. I think we’ve made that very apparent through the years.”
Katara snickered as mischief gleamed in her eyes. “And don’t you ever forget it,” she said as she pinched Zuko on the butt, and that earned her a yelp. “Everyone knows I wear the pants in the relationship.”
Zuko hummed as he rubbed the afflicted area on his butt. “That’s not exactly what went down last night, if I recall correctly.”
“Well, maybe I feel like switching things up tonight,” Katara said as she wiggled her brow.
Zuko’s heart leaped into his throat as heat scorched his body. Forget changing back into his typical Fire Nation robes. He should start wearing Katara’s clothes more often.