zutara week 2012 | day four | whimsical
Katara's slippered feet pound through the wet grass, droplets of dew jumping up at her ankles. She glances frantically behind her, watching for the telltale bush of black hair and reaching out for the burn of a flame at her back.
She finds neither.
Her heels slip on the soaked ground as she reels to a stop; she catches the branch of a sapling to the left and pulls herself back upright. Straightening her robes and readjusting her now-askew slipper, Katara rakes her eyes in the spaces between the trees, trying to distinguish a human form in the darkness. The sound of crickets floods her ears and the humid Fire Nation air clings to her skin.
And then she is facedown on the ground.
And she can't breathe.
And she can't move because someone is pressing down on her hips and her shoulders and he is stronger than she is.
"Zuko, let me up." Instead of a verbal response, he flips her onto her back.
"Zuko." She glares at a face she can just barely make out in the middle of the night. His hands find their way to her midsection and her breath catches in her throat.
"Don't you dare–"
She is laughing, and he is laughing with her. Even in the dark, he can see her face flush a brilliant shade of pink and her lips part in a wide grin. In the dark, she can see how both of his eyes crease as his face is split in a smile.
In the dark, under the glow of the fireflies and the reflection of the moon in the turtleduck pond, the gardeners can see the whimsical scene of the Fire Lord and his Lady having a ticklefight in the middle of the Palace Garden.