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The throne room was overwhelming. There was no other way for her to put it. After spending nearly a decade with Aang, most of which was spent at the Air Temple with only the other Air Acolytes, Katara had naively thought that the bustling city of Caldera was already a lot.
The jostling people, the layered cacophony of voices and sounds, the veritable amount of emotions suffusing the air… she'd thought to herself, this isn't so bad.
How wrong she'd been. The throne room, in all of its magnificent, regal glory, made sure of that. She was fourteen again, witnessing the world outside of the South Pole with fresh eyes. Not naive, per se, but wondrous. Hopeful.
It wasn't that she wasn't those things anymore—no, Aang kept those things alive and flourishing inside of her, it was one of the many things she loved most about him—but it had been a very different time, in a very different life. One she barely recognized when she looked back on it.
But this throne room, the sight of it, made it all come rushing back to her in rolling, crashing waves. The room was humongous, with arching ceilings that had to be dozens of feet tall, held up by wooden poles that lined the walls. The carpet was delimitated by a dozen sages on each side, each standing stiffly at attention as they stared silently ahead.
It all led to a raised platform at the far back, the section marked not by a flaming throne as it had been ten years ago, but by a beautiful, ornately carved wooden motif depicting various patterns and swirls. A powerful dragon's tail curled around one end, its wooden scales following through to the other side. At the centre was a plain section of darker wood, negative space framed by the motif, made to resemble a flame.
And in the centre of that flame was a man with a scarred eye.
Katara's eyes widened. If it weren't for his scar and the obvious deference of every person in the room, she wouldn't even have recognized him. He was just so… different.
The first thing she noticed was his hair. It was longer than she'd ever seen it—no, that first year chasing them did not count—and even from this distance she could see the healthiness of it. It shone and moved in a way that the dry, careless mess he had sported perpetually after the Day of Black Sun never had.
The rest of him was equally different. His face had sharpened, the features of it more pronounced. The robes he wore made him look huge underneath them—clearly designed that way with the cut of the shoulders and the cinching at the waist—but it was also evident that the robes couldn't take all the credit. His shoulders were broad and straight, arms pronounced, chest wide. Muscular in a way that couldn't be hidden, nor were they trying to. And then there was the fact that though he sat quietly, his expression neutral, his presence filled the room.
He felt like a Fire Lord.
Zuko was practically unrecognizable.
"Welcome, Avatar Aang, Master Katara," he pronounced. The sages bowed reverently. Then Zuko stood and bowed as well, and his sages bowed even lower. They rose when Zuko did. "I trust you had a safe journey?"
Katara and Aang bowed as well. "Fire Lord Zuko," Aang said when they had all straightened. "We did. Thank you for you generous hospitality, the palace is as beautiful as a 30-foot bonfire on a beach on a warm summer evening."
Pursing her lips, Katara tried to contain her laugh. It was harder when she saw the sages glancing at each other in her periphery, expressions bewildered.
Yet on the dais, Zuko was austere alabaster. His lips did not even twitch. It killed the laugh Katara was trying to suppress. "It is yours to come and go as you please. The staff have worked long and hard to prepare the banquet hall tonight in your honour. Should you need anything before then, please, do not hesitate to ask. Wu Feng will show you to your room."
This time she hid her frown. It was clearly an excuse to dismiss them considering they knew where their rooms were and didn't need someone to guide them.
A servant appeared from the shadows—Wu Feng, if Katara had to wager a guess—and bowed before them. Wordlessly, he gestured with an open hand towards the doors.
Katara and Aang followed obediently. Outside the throne room, Wu Feng led them through the halls. He stopped. It was so abrupt that Katara barely avoided crashing into Aang who barely avoided Wu Feng. They'd only made it two doors down. The duo shared a frown.
Before them sat a singular oak door, which he opened with a bow.
Aang stepped inside then shook his head. "Uh, Wu Feng? I think you may have made a wrong turn back there. This isn't our room, this is… I'm actually not sure what it is."
Katara peeked around him, her confusion rapidly increasing. "It's empty?" It was not meant to be a question. It came out as one.
They turned to him, but Wu Feng shook his head politely. "This is the room the Fire Lord asked for you to be brought to. He will arrive soon. Can I get you anything while you wait?"
Someone who can show us to our rooms? "No, thank you, Wu Feng."
Message and package—it was them, they were the package—delivered, Wu Feng closed the door and strode off.
Katara and Aang shared another glance. Aang shrugged and settled into a cross-legged seat on the floor.
She didn't feel like sitting. She paced the perimeter of the room, one hand trailing over the waist level trim. When she lifted her hand to inspect her fingers, there was not a single speck of dust.
"Aang."
"Mhm?"
"Did he seem… different?"
"Zuko?"
"Yeah."
He went quiet at that. Contemplative. Katara resumed her pacing.
"It's not easy, having that much weight on your shoulders," Aang said eventually, rising to his feet.
Katara could fill a graveyard with the heft of the grief that shuddered through her. "Are you speaking from experience?"
His hand came up to her shoulder before he slid his arms around her waist and kissed the back of her head. "It was different for me." His breath was hot against her scalp. "I was lucky enough to have you."
The statement made her smile, even if it didn't alleviate any of the pressure in her chest.
It feels like hours later when a knock echoed within their small room. They leapt to their feet as Zuko stepped in.
Watching him in the doorway, feeling him in this room, Katara was once again hit with just how much space he took up. Where Aang often tried to make himself small—one of the people, Zuko radiated power.
Zuko observed them passively. The door shut behind him.
Hour-long seconds passed until Zuko said, "Hello." Zuko here.
That single word was said with more emotion than anything Zuko had shown while they were in the throne room. She couldn't see either Zuko nor Aang's faces with the way they grabbed hold of each other and hugged tightly, but she could hear the grin in his voice. Aang, she knew, would have a similarly joyous expression.
They released each other after several seconds, and Katara had to school away the shock on her face when they pulled apart and she realized that Aang was now taller than Zuko, just by a little.
Aang came to a similar conclusion at the same time. "Have you gotten shorter?" he teased.
Zuko rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide the smile on his face. "Katara," he called, turning to her. And the smile that came over her—well, she couldn't school that one away even if she wanted to.
Katara wasn't sure who closed the distance between them. She thinks maybe it was her, with the way she began to run, or maybe it was him, striding forward with his long legs, or maybe it was both of them at the same time, rushing forward to wrap their arms around the other.
Despite being shorter than Aang, Zuko was still remarkably tall, which was her first indicator that he'd grown again in the last seven years. She hadn't really noticed with Aang, but it was jarring on Zuko. Her head came up to his chin now. He rested his cheek atop her crown, his embrace warm and dancing some strange line between foreign and familiar.
He really had filled out over the years, so distant from the scraggly boy of sixteen, and he was wearing some kind of scent that she couldn't put her finger on. All she knew was that it was rich and pleasant. None of it could disguise that firebender warmth.
They pulled away at last, but Zuko only released her enough to grab ahold of her arms and study her.
Familiar golden eyes bore into hers.
Aang clapped Zuko on the back, his other arm going comfortably around Katara's waist, and he crushed them into a three-way hug. Aang was laughing, and she was laughing, and Zuko was grumbling, but she could feel the vibrations in his chest the way she could feel them in Aang's.
And she felt it, too, when he grumbled even louder in a half-assed cover up of the way he pulled them in even tighter.
Zuko led them both through the dazing twists and turns that were the corridors of the palace. They passed room after room, and every servant they saw stopped and bowed reverently. Wasn't that jarring, as well?
Finally, they entered a tea room clearly prepared for their presence. A low, round table sat in the middle, along with three cushions spaced equally around it and a beautiful tea set on a tray in the middle. A swirl of steam wafted out the nose of the pot.
"The renovations look amazing, Zuko," Aang said, plopping down onto one of the pillows.
They better have, considering the fortune they cost, Katara heard Zuko say. It took her a moment to realize that he had only said, "Thank you," instead.
She hid the odd look she wanted to give him behind a sip of the tea that he poured for them. It was a delightfully fragrant blend. When the perfectly warmed liquid touched her tongue, she knew it immediately. Chrysanthemum. Her favourite.
What a lovely coincidence.
She closed her eyes to savour the second sip before saying, "This tea is delicious, Zuko."
Aang, already on his second cup, nodded enthusiastically.
Zuko's smile was pleased. "I'm glad you think so, because this is for you." He slid forward a wooden box she had glossed over initially.
Katara had the sneaking suspicion she knew what its contents were. "Oh, Zuko, that's not necessary at all."
"No," he agreed. "It isn't." And then, before she could protest further, he gestured for the Kyoshi Warrior standing in the corner of the room who approached with a beautifully carved staff in her hands. She handed it to Zuko with a bow, who offered it to Aang.
Aang was immediately enraptured. His fingers danced over the wood, eager but not quite touching.
Zuko chuckled, meeting Katara's amused gaze briefly, but Aang had only eyes for the staff between them. "Take it. It's yours."
Aang didn't hesitate. His fingers closed around the staff at the same time as he leapt to his feet. The staff came to life, spinning and whirling in intricate patterns in his deft hands as if he had known it his whole life. "Zuko," he breathed, "this is amazing."
He clicked a button on the side and the glider unfolded so softly Katara didn't even hear it.
"It's fireworm silk," Zuko informed them. "Our strongest textile. Completely fireproof and waterproof, and the wood has been treated to be fire-resistant as well."
Aang's fingers grazed the materials reverently. "Wow."
Katara grinned, sharing another look with Zuko.
"I wish I could try this out right now," Aang said.
Zuko's smile turned into a smirk. "Funny you should say that…"
At his second gesture, the Kyoshi Warrior pushed open a hidden door behind her and revealed a gorgeous, expansive courtyard. Aang didn't need any further encouragement. He sprinted out the door and took off.
Their smiles stretched wide as Aang, already barely more than a speck in the distance in the time it had taken them to stand and watch from the doorway, hooted and hollered.
"Zuko…" she admonished quietly.
He eyed her and said nothing.
"It's too much," she said emphatically.
"I disagree."
Katara glared at him.
Despite keeping his eyes on the airbender dancing in the skies, Zuko's lips still twitched. "So does he."
She crossed her arms and continued to glare.
"You want me to take it away from him?"
If she was a firebender, her glare would have burned twin holes into the sides of his head by now. Alas, Zuko was unaffected.
Aang did a complicated twist, launching himself further up into the air before closing the glider completely to let himself free fall. He caught himself at the last minute with a flourish and took off again.
"Thank you," Katara said finally.
When Zuko's eyes slid to hers, they were as soft as the fireworm silk. "You don't need to thank me, Katara."
"I do. Chrysanthemum is my favourite."
Rather than respond, Zuko looked back out on the courtyard.
"How much did the silk cost?"
"I don't know. Pavora handles all that stuff." He chuckled at the look she gave him. "Pavora is my stylist."
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
"It was nothing, Katara. Seriously."
"Really?" she said, unconvinced. "Where did you get such a nice blend?"
"Uncle had it imported."
"That must have cost a fortune," Aang said, touching down near them. There was a light sheen of sweat on his face that made him glow. "Did you know it's Katara's favourite?"
A quirk of the lips. "It came up."
"I've never had one that aromatic." Aang folded up his glider, running a reverent hand over the exquisite craftsmanship, didn't even seem to realize he was doing it.
Neither had she, and they'd been all over the world. "Not to mention the glider."
Zuko's secretive smile was back. "Perks of being the Fire Lord."
Katara began to narrow her eyes again, but Aang only laughed and said, "I know it's been almost ten years, but I still can't think of you that way," as he began to head back inside.
"And how do you think of me, Avatar Aang?"
Aang shot him a shit-eating grin that made Zuko sputter, "Oh no. Don't you d—"
"What's wrong," Aang said innocently, "Flameo Hotman?"
The two continued inside, bickering amongst themselves as if the only amount of time that had passed between them had been but the blink of an eye.
Swallowing down the irrational stone in her gut, Katara took a deep breath and followed them in.
In the late evening, long after the fancy dinner banquet Zuko had held to celebrate the visit of the Avatar, long after the sun had set over the horizon and made way for stars and moon, Katara slipped out of her and Aang's room. Aang was off in the city, visiting, chatting as he did.
Katara had been too tired to join. Plus, there was someone she wanted to talk to first.
She found Zuko exactly where she expected to: in his private turtle duck pond.
He was sitting beneath the large willow tree, dressed in a plain linen tunic and darker linen pants, the legs of which were rolled up to his knees to avoid the fate of his feet, dangled in the water as they were. His hair was tied up in a full bun at his crown. No longer just a top knot, only his long fringes were left to frame the face she couldn't quite see.
Katara decided she liked him much better like this. He was still sat with perfect posture, a habit that he couldn't escape from even in the privacy of his own garden, but there was a delicate lightness to him that couldn't be fabricated. Unaware of her presence, Zuko leaned back with his fingers in the grass and tilted his head up to the sky with his eyes closed.
At once, she felt a surge of guilt at her presence. She didn't want to disturb what was clearly a ritualistic moment of relaxation for him, but the moment she stepped back, she stepped on what was apparently the only branch in the well-maintained garden.
The crack echoed aggressively in the serenity.
Zuko leapt up, eyes smoking and fists afire. He stilled at the sight of Katara and the sheepish expression she knew she was probably wearing. It took another second of shocked staring for him to say, "Katara?" and yet another for him to remember to drop his stance.
"Sorry," they both said at the same time. Their eyes widened simultaneously.
"I didn't mean to disturb you," Katara apologized. "I'll just go—"
"No!" Zuko said quickly, then seemed mortified by his outburst. He rubbed the back of his neck in a way that made her ache. "No. Stay. You're always wel— I'm the one who should be sorry."
That gave her pause. "Why should you be sorry?"
But as soon as the words left her lips, she immediately wanted to smack herself for asking something so unbelievably stupid. After everything that had happened, with Aang, with Toph, with his father, of course he'd be apologetic.
The old Zuko would have been beside himself. He would have fallen over himself with apologies spilling from his lips like air until she stopped him.
This Zuko… his expression stayed neutral. Glacial. It was the first time ice had ever made her feel truly apprehensive.
Katara didn't know what to make of that.
The urge to fix whatever this was was visceral, but when she scoured her mind for options, none were forthcoming. This Zuko and the old Zuko felt light-years apart. So distant they could've been two separate entities. She didn't know how to reconcile one with the other.
She had to try. Katara put her hands on her hips and affected her best glower of indignation. "As if you'd have been able to land a single hit."
He considered her, veteran eyes taking in the details of her stance and the jut of her chin. Under his scrutinizing gaze, she tilted it out further. A challenge.
He cracked. The grin that broke out over his face was resplendent and bright.
Before she knew it, Katara was closing the distance again and throwing her arms around his neck. He bent down to hug her properly, and that was what cracked the dam.
It was the fact that he had changed, had grown so much, in every possible way. It was the fact that beneath it all, he was still sweet, caring Zuko, bending down in a way that couldn't be comfortable just so that they could be shoulder to shoulder. Katara buried her face into the side of his neck and let the tears fall from her eyes.
He smelled like the perfume she had noticed earlier, luxurious and layered with that familiar scent of him hidden beneath. It made her tear up more. She had missed that scent. She missed the memories wrapped in them. Their time at the Western Air Temple, being doused in rain searching for her mother's killer, hiding in his summer home on Ember Island, flying on Appa's back in the gloom of anticipation to fight his sister, spending days at his bedside to keep him from the brink of death. And later, too, hugging him after his crowning, spending insomnia-filled nights talking quietly by his turtle duck pond, hugging him again during those scant times she and Aang found the time to visit in the first three years of his reign.
She missed him. She hadn't let herself really feel it before but in that moment, it all came pouring out in a vortex that she no longer had the energy to control.
Spirits, she had missed him so much.
Zuko's shoulders shook. He leaned away just enough just to see the tears streaming down her face and then his chuckles became audible. His thumb came up to brush one of the drops away. It was instantly replaced by another.
He pulled her in again, letting the tears soak into the dry material of his tunic. "You know, if this shirt really needed another wash, I would've just asked a servant."
Katara huffed. "Oh, please. I could've made a new lake in a desert with the glassiness in your eyes."
Zuko laughed again, rubbing a hand up and down her arm comfortingly. Her hiccups faded into sniffs then into deep, even breaths. When she finally found the energy to straighten, there were two large, wet dots on his tunic.
Katara's eyes widened, and she turned her head quickly in the hopes that he wouldn't notice. It was her ears that gave her away. The traitors. Zuko took one look at them, glanced down at his tunic, and burst out laughing again.
Oh, she missed that, as well.
"Shut up!" she exclaimed, pushing him away from her.
He sobered up quickly, settling down by the pond once more. Her shoulder brushed his as she sat down to his right, their feet dipping into the cool water.
Neither of them spoke, neither wanting to disturb the peaceful quiet. The wind lifted a leaf into the water and sang as it danced with the trees. A cricket sounded from between a stalk of reeds.
"You've changed," she murmured. The baby turtle duck nipped at her fingertip and then turned away towards Zuko, who opened his hand to allow it to wade into his palm. With his other hand, he ran the back of one finger down its soft head.
He didn't respond immediately. He waited for the turtle duck to let out a gentle quack of protest and lowered it back into the water. "All good, I hope?"
"Jury's still out."
Zuko barked out a laugh. The poor baby turtle duck, who had been slowly waddling off his hand, startled and tumbled face first into the water. Katara and Zuko let out simultaneous gasps. They turned into gentle laughter when the turtle duck resurfaced, indignation clear on its face as it turned and swam away.
Zuko followed it with soft, glowing eyes. "You've changed, too."
"All good, I hope?"
He let out an undignified snort. The sort of one that a Fire Lord would never make, but a banished prince might. "Like you would ever allow anything else."
Katara hid a smile. "You're one to talk."
This silence was weightier. She could tell at once that this one meant he wasn't going to respond, even if she gave him time. She didn't think about how easy it was to fall into this pattern with him again after so many years. Talking. Listening. Reading him. Like she had never left.
And yet, she had, hadn't she?
"You're quieter," she offered.
The turtle duck rejoined its mother and siblings. A chorus of chirping quacks announced its arrival.
"It's not easy to talk when you have twenty people on your council."
"Your father would have forced them to listen."
He didn't need to acknowledge the statement. "Silence can be more powerful than words."
Case in point, she thought. She wondered briefly if that was something Iroh had taught him, or whether this new—no, different. She had no way of knowing if it was new—Zuko was his own doing. Somehow, she doubted it was the former. "That's not all it is." Then, because he wasn't going to say anything again, "You were quiet even with Aang. When it was the three of us."
He looked uncomfortable at that, his face pinching slightly. "I didn't— I mean, it's not… his fault," Zuko finished lamely.
"I know," she said, bumping his shoulder with hers. The creases in between his eyebrows relaxed. "You know he thinks he's your best friend?"
Zuko's lip quirked. The turtle duck family had turned a corner and were hidden behind a stalk of reeds now, though the occasional quack could still be heard alongside the odd splash. The winds eased and the water became still. The waxing crescent moon reflected perfectly on its surface. Katara stretched out onto her back to stare at it as the wind picked up again.
"You're quiet now," she whispered. "With me."
Does a falling tree still make a sound if no one is around to hear it? Does a person you once knew still exist if no one who knew them was there to see them change?
He swallowed audibly. "Katara…"
She held up a hand. "You don't need to say anything. I understand." The war had changed all of them. Not always directly or immediately.
This is who you are now.
The weighted look that he gave her spoke louder than anything he had said all evening.
She looked away. "You're taller."
"Are we listing out ways I've changed now?"
"Your voice is different."
"Turns out not always shouting about honour and duty does wonders for your vocal chords."
Katara raised an eyebrow. "I can't imagine you ever giving up that particular hobby. What do you do with yourself?"
He shrugged. "I just scream it in my head now. Stops my council from looking at me like I'm insane."
"Like a mantra?"
"Like a song." His delivery was deadpan serious.
She laughed outright at that, imagining a world where Zuko bobbed his head during meetings in an effort to not seem insane. "You're better at talking."
Another banished prince snort. "That's hardly a feat. The bar was, 'That's rough, buddy.'"
Katara's eyes crinkled as she recalled Sokka's indignant recounting of the story immediately upon their return from the Boiling Rock, and then Zuko's quiet admission around the fire hours later when everyone else had gone to sleep. "You had your moments."
"Now you're just lying to my face."
Her first instinct was to make another joke, something along the lines of of course not, that's a punishable offense, but she rolled her head over to look up at him and the idea just suddenly felt so wrong.
"Never." Without the veil of sarcasm, the simple words felt raw and exposed. Which was ridiculous, because it was nothing he didn't already know.
But Zuko's shoulders rose with the depth of his inhale. He said nothing.
"Zuko…"
"My hair's longer."
You're redirecting again. "It is." She fought to keep her voice casual. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to beat Toph."
"I'm not that delusional."
"No," she agreed. "Only enough to chase the Avatar across the globe."
"Is it delusion if I caught up to him eventually?"
"Is that what you tell yourself to sleep better at night?"
Zuko smiled. The grass tickled her ear.
"Your hair's longer too," he said.
She groaned. "I know. I have to keep wearing it in this braid because it keeps getting in my way but I can't cut it myself, and none of the Air Acolytes are any help."
He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. "You're surprised the bald monks know nothing about hair?"
"They all had hair before they became Acolytes! You'd think at least one of them would know how."
"You could teach one of them. Or Aang?"
She sighed softly. "He's worried he'll mess it up. Plus," she stroked a hand down the soft braid, "he says he likes it like this."
"It is nice," he offered, ever the diplomatic monarch.
"You sound like him." She couldn't keep the wry tone out of her voice.
"He is the paragon of wisdom, is he not?"
"If I wanted the paragon of wisdom's opinion, I'd be asking him."
"Speaking of—where is he?"
Now this one, she wouldn't allow. "You're dodging the question."
The mischievousness in his grin was still the same, as was the pang it sent through her chest. "I'm certain I don't know what question you're referring to."
"You're arguing with a waterbender. Beside a pond. Under the moon."
"You're in the Fire Lord's private garden," he countered. "In his palace. Surrounded by his Kyoshi Warriors."
"They can't reach you before I splash you."
He snickered, letting himself fall back to the grass beside her. They laid like that, shoulder to shoulder in the soft grass as he stared up at the cloudless sky for several long moments. Eventually, he turned his head to face hers. They were so close their noses were nearly brushing.
The touch of his golden eyes left her both heavy and floaty, a little like an iceberg in the sea. Ethereal enough to exist for centuries. Powerful enough to sink a freighter.
It left her reeling with the force of it. Her disconcerted panic from earlier paled in comparison, suddenly ridiculous in its existence. Even now, ten years after the war, Zuko still looked at her the same way he always did.
She wasn't sure how she ever thought he was unrecognizable.
"I like it like this," he said honestly, "but I like it more when you wear your hair down."
The breathlessness that overtook her chest as the words left his mouth was one she knew well.
"I haven't worn it like that in a very long time," she confessed. Ten years, to be precise.
He didn't seem surprised by that.
"How else have I changed?" Her voice came out quieter than she meant it to.
Blinking slowly, he lowered his voice to match hers. The soft gravel of it made her shiver. "You're lighter. Aang's influence."
She was and it was. It hadn't been easy in those initial few years to let go of that incessant part of her brain, and she had never quite let it go completely, not in the way she knew Aang sometimes wanted from her, but the difference was still palpable. Of course Zuko would pick up on it.
"You're more confident," he continued.
That earned him an eyebrow raise. "Was that something I was lacking in before?"
"You're more comfortable in your own body," he amended. "You know who you are and what you want."
"Like you."
Zuko stilled so imperceptibly that she wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't been staring straight at him. "What?"
"You also know who you are and what you want."
His throat bobbed, then the grass made a soft swish as he turned his head to look back up. "It never changed."
Not since Ember Island. Not since defeating Azula. Not since his coronation. Zuko's steadfast and strong-willed nature were some the things she admired most about him. "Some things don't."
"Like you and Aang."
A smile slipped onto her lips. "Like me and Aang." Then, "What about me and you?"
Will we ever change?
"No," he murmured. "No, that won't ever change either."
Another silence settled over them. It carried in the wind, wrapped around them like a cotton blanket.
"You're still just as broody," Katara said, just to have something to say.
Zuko rolled his eyes and the corner of his lips quirked, but he didn't deny it. The soothing rhythm of his quiet breathing billowed beside her. She could have picked it out amongst a city of hundreds.
The breeze blew softly, pulling out the hair loops from behind Katara's ears where she had tucked them in earlier, as she traced the moon with her eyes and listened to the rustling of the leaves and the turtle ducks as they continued to play.
"Do you feel fulfilled?"
As the question left her lips, she wondered if it surprised him as much as it had her.
But if it had, he carefully didn't let it show. Instead, his eyes seemed to seize hers as he returned, "Do you?"
Suddenly, she couldn't stand the way his gaze made her feel, his eyes as hot as a spotlight. "You're dodging the question. Again."
Knowing silence met her statement. Katara shifted, kicking her foot in a slow swirl in the hopes that it would soothe the rawness she was feeling. If only this was something her powers could heal.
Zuko pushed his calf against hers to still her fidgeting. His skin was firebender warm. "I do."
For inexplicable reasons, her voice caught as she said, "Good. That's good." A breath. "I do too."
His gaze heated the side of her head. Katara fisted the grass near her hip and fought the urge to fidget.
"That's another way you've changed."
Her lips parted. The words themselves should have been positive, but there was a solemnity with which he said them that made something in her chest tighten. "What do you mean?"
But when she looked back at him, he had turned to face the stars once more.