You Are a Tourist

A Zuko and Katara Drabble Series

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Weeping Willow

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"He's finally asleep." Her lips moved, but her words came out unattached, in bits and pieces; the flap of the tent closed behind her in a slight gust of air. "I can't bear to see him –"

And her voice caught, tears gathering at the edges of her eyes. He took her hand awkwardly, unsure of his gestures; comforting was not his specialty. But it didn't seem to matter to her as she held on tight anyway.

They came to a small green patch of life by a towering tree where they decided to sit. Zuko settled first and sat against the tree. Katara sprawled a few inches away, taking her hand back from him and spreading them wide into the foliage. She lay with her stomach on the ground, her nightgown a canvas for her dark hair to spill over.

"It's odd," Zuko said after a few moments of Katara combing the green ground. "In the Fire Nation, nothing is green."

And she laughed, brilliant and beautiful and forced, laughed and soon tears were coming down her cheeks and dotting her nightgown with dark gray patches. And she sat up with something in her hand, closed tight between two fingers, and wrapped her arms around his neck without warning and cried.

"Nothing is green where I come from either," she whispered quietly, in between sobs. "It's all ice."

And he realized the irony, green meaning life, and how their nations were such a contradictory to that. He shifted his arms to lock them around her until she had cried herself to sleep. He picked her up to carry her back to camp, and not until he laid her down on her blankets did he see what was clasped in her fingers.

It was a four-leaf clover, the richest green with smooth edges and leaves all the same size.

He didn't know why he did it, but he slid it out of her fingers and pocketed it.

He almost got away too – but then her eyes opened, bleary and red from crying.

"Don't leave," she mumbled, her hand closing on his before she drifted back to sleep. He lay down next to her and rolled to his back, thinking.

He was afraid that she would be like this forever, broken and crying. But he thought of how the war would be decided after tomorrow, or maybe it would take a few weeks, but after that, he decided he would take her somewhere nice where she could stay awhile. Somewhere without people, with a nice house, a pond or maybe a waterfall…

Somewhere green.

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xx Definitely excited for this. I've wanted to start one forever, but with all my other drabbles.. Ah, I just said what the heck.