.
.
It wasn't that she didn't like him, to be an exact.
He irritated her.
Water Girl Katara found Fire Boy Zuko irritating.
Their elements were too opposite and different and didn't quite fit into each other like water and earth, water and air did; she didn't know why it surprised everyone so much. ("You're pretty much our mother; you're meant to love everyone!")
Aang rolls his eyes, "Stop being a five-year-old-'get-the-cooties-off' girl and play nicely. We need him, in case you don't remember the lack of fire benders willing to teach me," he smiles and leaves with Sokka (they have a war to plan, don't you know).
She opts to throw Zuko off the cliff once Aang has learned enough of fire. Her brother agrees and Aang decides that paranoia runs in the family (ignoring the fact they have a very good reason to be skeptical and he has no reason to be so positive). Then again, Sokka has never liked the other boy (but there are moments when they share smiles and laughs about sisters-who-annoyed-us-when-we-were-younger. Katara takes offense to it; she's not like that Monster).
Toph and Zuko have always been friends. Poor, young girl doesn't understand why he's just that terrible. She's blind (ironically, yet not, because she's always been blind is onetwothreeseven ways) to his lying smirk. "It's because," she whispers, "You don't try to relate to him."
As always, Toph is making it all out to be her fault.
She calls on Aang to train with her. She wants to attack stuff.
.
Normally they don't like going out to the Fire Nation villages, but Zuko says this is not a day to miss. They put out their pretty little fake outfits, along with faces and smiles and walk into town like they aren't The-Avatar-and-Company. He says no one will notice them; too much going on - too many pretty lights and children screaming for candy.
There were so many pretty lights, it's true, smiling children and laughter that they almost forgot that this was not a place they want to be (Toph excluded; she couldn't understand half the pretty things. She did say that the music was beautiful, though). They almost forgot that these people would kill them on sight if they knew who they were. It was a nice distraction from the life they lead.
That one Katara has to go and ruin it by saying she thinks he's setting a trap, ignoring Aang's arguments of "He's no longer welcome there! How's he going to rally up troops for an ambush?" and she says that she believes he was lying all along (despite the fact they've seen 'kill on sight' posters every time they go into town).
Aang wants to the see the Fire bending competitions so they decide to stay late.
(Besides Toph; she feels sick inside because she can hear them talking about how beautiful this is but she just can't see it. It's time like this that she despises more than breathing. Sokka says it's not that impressive but that's only because she doesn't understand never seeing it. It also makes her miss her old fighting days, but that's a whole other story.)
Aang asks if any of the boys fighting will get hurt. "Probably," Zuko says, "It makes for a better show," and she thinks that disgusting. Sokka thinks it's true; it does make for a much better show and she's about to give up on the whole world. Their savior, however, agrees with her, so her brother says no more and just watches the fight.
The Fire Nation national anthem plays and they all stand (Sokka and Aang find it very, very necessary to incognito farting contest during it). Not a word is spoken, but when they sit back down and the fighting starts, Sokka asks if the lyrics go, "Fire Lord, my heart burns for you?"
"No," Zuko says, looking mildly insulted, "That's stupid! Where ever did you hear that?"
Sokka shrugs, "A place."
Aang and Zuko are talking about the fire bending techniques they saw during the shows and which ones Aang will be taught ("How will learning to make a coin made of fire help you in battle?"), Sokka is admiring the new boomerang he bought and Katara is humming a pretty song she heard at the festival-or-whatever-it-was. It was pretty and catchy.
.
She hums it when she and Zuko are making dinner around the camp fire. Aang hopes that giving them tasks like that will help them grow less irritated with each other (even though Zuko doesn't really mind her). He glares into the fire, though, as she hums.
"Could you just not do that!" she says, angrily.
"What?" she replies back, angrily as well (the fish is going black; they don't notice).
"Could you not hum? That song is disgusting!"
"I can do whatever I want!" and he leaves.
Aang shakes his head when she calls them up from their activities for dinner (he's been training with Toph, and Sokka's been staring at the rising moon) and asks he just what she's done to upset him. "You say I'm a five-year-old-'get-the-cooties-off' girl, but he's a three-year-old-'I-want-mummy' boy!" she grumbles to him, placing her cooked fish on a plate they got in town. She looks back to Aang, with his disappointed face and sighs. She puts another fish on her plate.
"What are you doing with that?" Sokka asks, "If anyone gets two, it's me."
She rolls her eyes. "I'm going to take one to the whiner. His meal will disappear otherwise."
.
Momo brought him a fruit or ball or something, three days after he arrived. When he threw it against a wall, it bounced back to him. It wasn't fun or anything, just time consuming and distracting. Also fairing amusing because he was always wondering if the contents (Whatever it was inside it) were going to land on him if it did break. That's what he needed, distracting from his moaning stomach, pleading for food.
Zuko is sitting against a stone wall, throwing it against the wall across from him. The bed to the left on him looks found more comfy then the floor. The beds here weren't like the one in the Fire Nation. They felt like there was air in them (maybe there was) and the Fire Nation was felt like stone.
"Oh, there you are," a voice smiles outside the door. Katara is out there, leaning on the door, "Should you really be in there? Weren't these female air bender rooms?" she teases lightly, a plate in her hand and she placed apiece of fish in her mouth.
"Those girls are long dead now," he states, flatly and her face falls from a smile.
Offering the plate, outwards, she asks, "You want dinner, or can the Barbarian have it?"
"It's mine. I'm hungry."
They eat in silence. It amazes him that, even though she had very little left, she still managed to finish after him. Then again, he was really hungry. He starts to throw the ball-or-whatever-Momo-gave-him across the room again. She stops eating and watching him for a while, but decides it's a ridiculous game and decides to just eat in peace.
Not before prying. "Is that some weird Fire Nation toy?" she asks.
"No," he replies, "It's some weird Momo toy."
She laughs and goes back to eating the far-too-small portion of fish that was left.
.
.
"Why did you get pissed when I was humming?"
"My mother use to sing that song to me."
"Oh."
"Yeah…"
"Can you teach me the rest of it?"
("Is this what 'relating' is?")
.
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There are words to the song and he'll write them out for her if she wants, she's told as he disregards his plate to the other side of the room; it's been sitting, empty, in his lap for hours. Her eyes drop and she admits that she's never really learnt much from books (The meaning escapes her and the tune flees her ears. When she was young, learning books never taught how to play with the water in the ocean from books; she disregards them). Her plate has been abandoned on the side of the room for hours now.
"Sing it to me," she smiles, like a child. For some reason he get the image of Azula asking the same thing of him when they were children, ("I don't want that vile woman singing to me, so won't you?"). He had every reason to refuse his sister then (that plotting gleam in her eyes, that smile across her face that read one that and the fact he'd finally learned his lesson about trusting her) but none to refuse Katara.
He shakes his head, violently.
"Oh," her smile weakens.
"Want to see if the others have anything for dessert?"
Five bowls are placed in a circle around the fire. Turns out Toph walked back into town when they were watching the Fire Bending and bought ice-cream. They all mutually agree to ask no more questions ("Where did you get the money?") because she's never had a good track record (at least she's not a broken record of good advice like Katara).
Katara loves ice-cream. She and Sokka had it when they were young; Grandma used to make it and serve it as a full second course. Sokka misses the days he didn't have to share it with so many people. He's selfish in the dining room, but makes up for that later.
Aang slightly remembers the monks receiving some as a treat from the Water Bending in the North. He made it all light and fluffy with Air Bending because it was far too compact and cold. Ice-cream isn't really enjoyable for him. He feeds Momo and Appa most of it.
Toph likes ice-cream. She likes the way it melts over her tongue and runs down her neck. It's one of the beauties in life she can enjoy with everyone else.
Zuko doesn't like ice-cream. He gives his to Katara and Sokka.
"Why would they even sell ice-cream in a Fire Bending village?"
"Probably because it's better than normal Fire Nation food."
"Shut up, Sokka."
.
Twelve o'clock, she thinks she hears him grumble as she sits on his bed. Also something about going away but her hearing is getting atrocious these days. He opens his eyes and, discovers that in the moonlight she looks just like two completely girls, he thinks, but neither are what he wants to see ("Must you wear your hair like that? Must stand in the way she use to when mocking such innocence?").
It's a good ten minutes that she just stands in the moonlight in the doorway and doesn't speak. He likes her better this way; when she's just standing there in silence because he can pretend that she's not there. It's an illusion, he can tell himself, don't worry, it'll fade ("Do you really want that?")
"Sing me the song," she pleads incredibly annoyingly, kneeling to his bed and nuzzling her head into it, "Please. I'll leave; just sing it to me."
He grumbles something along the lines of okay or fine or if it'll just make you leave! and got up from his bed (if he's not fully awake, he won't sing clearly and she'll make him do it again). She took his place, sitting on the pretty bed and leaning on the wall behind her.
"I'm sure," she smiles, "That you have a lovely voice."
.
"We prayed to perfect Avalon,
We wished for anyone to take us home,
If you want to build this house with me,
Oh what a story,
This is how they'll all remember me.
We were the lucky ones that would survive the flood,
With potted flowers in our blood,
Pretending that we don't know where we bleed.
All the pretty fall."
.
Altogether, he probably forgot some vital lines, but she wouldn't know that. By the time he finishes; she's asleep on his bed, curled up on his bed. He goes to wake her up (after all, he's very tired and he's rather not go bed to sleeping on stone) but, if she awoke, she'd probably make him sing it again (she was asleep for half of it) so he decides not to wake her up.
He goes sleep on Appa.
(It's comfy enough.)
"Oi, Firefly, could you not sing. I'd like to have one of my remaining senses, thanks."
"I want to cut off my ears with my boomerang."
"Don't make me take all the air from your lungs!"
That's pretty much what he expected from the others.
(What he didn't expect was them listening in. Then again, he should've expected that.)
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NOTES:
1. 4/1/09: Fixing up all old fanfiction. (Liking names again. Nicknames starting to bother me.)
2. Not nessecarily Zutara.