"Azula, last I checked, you were supposed to come back from the academy with more knowledge," said 12-year-old Zuko with a sigh. Gesturing helplessly to the somewhat older girl by his sister's side, he continued, "not kidnap somebody's daughter and hide her out here in one of the abandoned secret passages."

His little pipsqueak-of-nine-years sister glared at him, not appreciating his bland attempt at humor in the face of the situation the two siblings were in. "Zuzu," she said with a light growl, "I did not kidnap Aang." Puffing herself up proudly, she went on with a small smile, "I rescued her from being frozen in a chunk of an iceberg."

Zuko glanced quizzically in the headband-wearing girl's direction. "An iceberg? You were frozen in an iceberg? How-" he began, but upon seeing the older girl's leather covered hand scratch the back of her head sheepishly, his mind suddenly decided that it needed to protect his sanity. Desperately. "Never mind. I don't wanna know." Turning his attention back to his sister, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, "What I do want to know is what in Agni's name were you doing outside the academy in the first place when you found her."

Azula blinked owlishly at him for a couple of brief moments. "Huh," was all she said before turning to her female companion, "it seems you were right, Aang. He may be a dum-dum-"

Zuko took exception to this remark. "Hey!" he protested. He was, of course, ignored.

"-but I guess he does care about me. In a dorky, and completely hilarious way, of course, but at least he means well."

His sister's friend giggled softly at Azula's description of her brother, drawing Zuko's attention away from his sibling and to Aang instead. To his eyes, she appeared to be around his age, give or take a few months. She was dressed...strangely was the best way he could put it in his head, so he hoped he would never have to be in a situation where he would be forced to describe to the girl what he thought about her choices regarding fashion, or so help him Agni he would just die right there on the spot due to nothing more than sheer embarrassment. But to keep his mind on topic, which was certainly not the admiration of his sister's friend's cheekbones, her forehead covering hair that also spilled past her shoulder, and even more assuredly not the very vague beginnings of curves that made the girl's clothes do very, ahem, interesting things that Zuko was certainly not doing all he could to not just stare at like an idiot.

Wait, where did his train of thought go again? And why did he have the feeling it just fell off of a bridge and into a river?

The defenseless passengers of said train which were members of the family that were his brain's mental processes were saved from drowning when his sister, annoyed at her brother's stupid expression, snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Oi, dum-dum," she said, irritated at his sudden lack of an attention span, "if you're through getting lost inside the vast emptiness inside your head, I believe Aang just asked you a question."

Coughing into his fist in an admittedly futile attempt to hide his embarrassment. "Um, yes," he said as he tried to keep his mind in focus on the situation at hand, "what was the question again, Lady Aang?"

Aang and Azula glanced at each other, an amused expression on the younger girl's face while the elder silently mouthed the word 'Lady?' in question. Shrugging her shoulders as she rolled her eyes, Azula made a 'hurry-up' motion with her hand, signaling Aang to just get on with the question asking. "Oh, right," said Aang, before turning her full attention on Zuko, and asking with the most serious expression a 12-year-old girl's face could wear, "do people in the Fire Nation really not say 'Flameo' or 'Hotman' any more?"

Zuko glanced at his sister. She only shrugged in response. "Um, no," he said slowly, in a tone of voice that said he had know idea what the other person was talking about but was trying to be helpful anyway, "I can't really say that we say those things anymore."

Aang suddenly darted forward, grabbing Zuko's hands in her own and holding them up in front of her chin, as if she wanted him to pray for the souls of his countrymen, or alternatively had just discovered her father was a cabbage merchant all along without her knowledge and needed to freak out properly with a friend. "What about 'stay flaming'? Surely that hasn't fallen out of favor, right?" She looked at him, with those big, beautiful, gray eyes that reminded Zuko of those sketches of a puppy polar bear-dog he'd seen in one of his mother's books, and he wanted to say "No, we still use it all the time!" just so he wouldn't feel so bad for her, but at the same time he had no idea what it meant, so it was safer to just go with the truth.

"Sorry," he said as gently as he could, "I can honestly say that that phrase is no longer in use." He paused, thinking for moment, before asking, "What does it mean, by the way?"

TBC

AN: Welp, Fem!Aang x Zuko AU plotbunny, you have officially been (at the very least) partially written. Not sure if I'm gonna continue this, but we'll see.