He gave her flowers, and she was crushing them with a stone. Grinding. Pummeling. Katara was chewing her lower lip and concentrating on ripping the petals into a thick paste. Toph must have provided the mortar and pestle.

Zuko was always coming back to camp with something useful. It was a habit developed from his time on the road with Uncle. He'd bring back fruit, firewood, even mushrooms if he was absolutely certain of their safety. Katara was impressed, despite her determination to stay suspicious of the prince. Water tribe men were also gatherers. An old water tribe saying, "he walks with empty hands," was a description reserved for men considered too lazy to make good husbands.

When he brought the flowers, he handed them to Katara with some berries and a strip of medicinal bark. He didn't "present" them or anything. Flowers should speak for themselves, and these were the color of her eyes. He couldn't look at them without thinking of her, and he found himself developing an unusual interest in this particular variety of decorative plant.

When he saw her bend boiling water onto the remains of his gift, he walked away. Yes, these flowers had certainly spoken for themselves.

Two days later, an unusually tired Katara finished the mending and some laundry for the boys. She folded their freshly dried clothes and put them at the foot the owners' beds.

Zuko wasn't in his room, but she ran into him just as she was leaving. "I thought you could use an extra shirt," she said, as if she was asking him to light the morning fire. She didn't "present" it or anything. The shirt had taken hours to cut, sew, and dye. It would speak for itself. Katara walked past him without making eye contact.

There was a bundle of fabric at the foot of Zuko's bed. The style of the shirt was fire nation. The color, a rich indigo blue. In time, his favorite shirt would fade to the exact same shade as her eyes.