A/N: Credit for the gorgeous cover image goes to Aranehl at !

This is my contribution to Zutara Month 2014. I've never done anything like this before ("this" meaning "writing from prompts") and I'm currently sick so this really isn't up to scratch at all (sorry guys).

And I know each prompt begs more than a measly two sentences to tell their stories, but this is what I've done in my bleary-eyed, cotton-minded state of illness.

There are two parts to this story – a Zuko part (this first chapter) and a Katara part (see chapter two). You may have to read both parts to see how in the name of Tui and La these things relate to their prompts (and even then, some of them will probably seem to fall completely irrelevant), but I hope they're okay…

Let me know what you think, though? :)

Part I – Zuko

Hidden

The night is cloudy. Like the moon, she refuses even to peek at him.

Sleep

Her anger still echoes around the chamber, old tears are still crusted to his cheeks and older blood still stains his wrists. But her voice is softer now as his head rests on her legs and her breath laps at him like these encroaching tides of fatigue.

Confession

Hers is too late, and as such unnecessary. His uncle would be disgusted by his lack of manners, but he cannot look at her so long as that yellow ribbon hangs about her neck and a blue one (because she actually likes blue) weighs heavy in his pocket.

Garden

Because her lips are blossoms against his skin and her hair is tangled grasses and wild daisies between his fingers. Her eyes are warm ponds that bubble with her nervous giggles, her skin and her scent are of the richest soils, and the pounds of her heart against his ribs is the fruit of his labours.

Sadness

Even after sixty years of trying, the words are never right. The hawk watches impatiently as the Fire Lord again gives up, leaving the avery and casting another failed letter into the fire as he passes.

Quiet

He'll never tell a single soul about the raggedness of her breathing. He longs to be her blankets, to wrap her in a tight and warm embrace and hold still her quivering body while she cries.

Melt

There is something to be said for the heat of her embrace. Like water from an iceberg, the tightness bubbles then cascades and drips from his back as the steadiness of his bottom lip falls out.

Storm

Yon Rha will never know that they only make it a stone's throw down the road before her knees and steely composure shatter. She quakes in his arm like the last brittle leaf left on a tree and, maybe, he thinks, that isn't so far from the truth.

Fight

Her fists beat against his chest and all he can do is watch as tears press from behind her knotted eyelashes. The only bruises she plants are beneath her own sleepless eyes, the insults she spews only cut her own flesh, and the Fire Prince has never been more terrified than right now as he realises she is her own worst enemy.

Legend

It's just plain stupid, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation tells himself every day, so so so stupid. Yet every day, when her bright blue eyes grace his gaze, his soul reverberates with a voice too gentle to be his calling, "Shu?" and his heart immediately echoes with a reply that must be his; "Oma!"

Touch

There is a rule that ivory skin is never to meet chocolate. It is a rule they break every day ("Here's your ginseng-") just to rekindle that white hot spark in their stomachs.

Frozen

That is when his heart stops beating warmth and starts letting his blood flow cold. That is when his fire stops surging and when he starts to find greater joy in southern climates that embrace him at a temperature colder than his own.

Candles

He lights the room with tiny stars that flicker on their waxy stumps, and after many attempts he even manages to maintain a larger one with a blue light - the "moon". She tells him the night room he has made her is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, but he disagrees; his eyes can't leave her.

Dynamic

Her musicianship matches her morals. There are no crescendos of the bass or situations which occur in shades of grey; there is only right or wrong, black or white, mezzo forte or silence.

Treasure

There is only one thing that keeps Zuko's regret from boiling over on the bad days. A little girl with keen yellow eyes coos, nuzzles her black head against his chest, wraps a tiny fist tighter around his finger and anchors his gratitude in his life without the waterbender.

Switch

"You could have used the steam rooms! They have locks, you know!"

"But I can never remember which switch is for heat and which is for water..."

Vague

He learnt quickly that not all females held to stereotypes, and likewise he may breach a few himself. "What in Agni's name do you mean you "think we need some space", Zuko?!"

Pieces

A ribbon the colour of arctic waters, a purple pendant carved with a wave that rolls into tendrils of flame, and a golden clasp to hold the two. The only three things Iroh finds left over from their annual get-together are marred, melted and burnt into misshapes, obviously never to be put together again.

Shiver

It is painfully, skin-splittingly, breath-stoppingly cold. He only obliges her this with the keen knowledge that later she will strip him of all his nine layers of fur and feathers to breathe a new kind of heat into his skin.

Ripple

She is the only person who can cause his angst to falter and slip. And he thanks Ran and Shaw above that she has grown to love this her duty so much.

Disaster

He hadn't been expecting to be leaving the wedding so early and so alone. But she had been quite clear in her angry retorts to his confessions; she was Aang's and she was happy and it didn't matter if he knew she was lying because this was her life to lie through and it wouldn't hurt anyone but herself.

Sea

His anger is fear redirected, like lightning from its intended path. Anger is not healthy, but it is strong and it feels safe as he glares out at grey waves tossing magnificent heads against the skies.

Reconciliation

"You're still a jerk."

But she accepts the flowers.

Blaze

Her temper often sparks his questioning of who is really the firebender in their relationship.

"If you leave the toilet seat up again, bloody Agni, Zuko, I am going to cut your royal dick off so you have no choice but to leave it down…!"

Shower

Presents and kisses and tarts and fruits and pastries and petals and anything for his queen. When she reprimands him for spoiling her, his surplus of affections rains down on her miniature.

Flash

There is only so much lightning that can crack the sky before the thunder breaks too. He has never been a patient man, but for her he would wait a thousand lifetimes.

Electric

"That's like waterbending!"

"Exactly. My uncle invented this technique himself by studying waterbenders."

Soulmate

"Then who is mine?" her voice is like erhu strings that have been plucked too long without care for their strength.

He pulls her into him and she clutches fistfuls of his robes to her face as he tells her with all the power and gentleness in his being, "Me. Always me."