A/N: This piece is me just kind of rambling, getting some garbage off of my chest. Hope it makes some kind of coherent sense. I think it does.
Lost in Ba Sing Se
Jin was full of easy joy and humour and those huge green eyes of hers were so full of hope. She liked him. That much was obvious even to Zuko, often oblivious to the feelings of others. The Fire Nation prince, incognito and unhappy in Ba Sing Se, wondered what exactly he was doing on a date with a girl he had no intention of ever pursuing.
Pursuing; as if I would know how.
Uncle Iroh wanted him to do normal things that normal sixteen year olds did. But he was a prince and now an exile. What was normal about any of that? Uncle Iroh was ready to settle down in Ba Sing Se, the sprawling, walled capitol of the Earth Kingdom. He didn't care about going back to the Fire Nation and any kind of old life he may have led there. Nothing tied him to his homeland any longer. His son was dead, his wife was dead. The tea maker, former fearsome general in the Fire Nation army, would be happy anywhere really. Zuko envied the man his calm and his wisdom, his ability to adapt and blend and make friends. People loved Iroh. They were drawn to him as though he were some irresistible force. People did not love Zuko.
"Lee? Lee?"
He felt a hand on his arm, warm fingers clutching his green tunic. Who was this Lee person? Was he related to Zuko in any way? Would he have to pretend for the remainder of his life, stuff his true identity away where no one could ever see it like some precious treasure buried deep, beneath some old, gnarled tree perhaps. He hated hiding. He hated pretending. Zuko had no guile. And he was proud of his heritage.
Why am I proud to be part of a family that burns its children to prove a point?
He pushed that thought away. It hurt too much.
Everything in his life was so damned mixed up. And Jin, she would make certain things very simple. He could hold her hand and kiss her cheek and walk her home, all politeness and….no, he could never be charming. Charming was not a part of Zuko. He could only stammer and stumble his way through conversations, blushing and knocking things over. Sometimes he wondered how he could ever have been a prince. Even that Water Tribe boy, the one with the boomerang, had more poise than he did.
What am I doing here?
"Is something wrong, Lee?" Trying in that sweet, earnest Jin way to make him feel better, she placed a soft kiss on his lips.
Zuko returned if for a moment before breaking away. "It's complicated." The words tumbled off the tip of his tongue before he gave them a thought. He didn't want to kiss Jin. There was another girl, one with raven hair, one who had probably forgotten him, one who made the fires of his heart crackle and blaze with a brilliance they had not known before her.
Jin didn't frown exactly but her body stiffened a bit. She let go of his arm. "Oh."
The date was over. Both could see that now. Before he could offer to walk her home or back to the tea shop, she darted away, brown braids bouncing off her shoulders, away from the Firelight Fountain and back to whatever humdrum life she lived. He hadn't even asked her about it.
Zuko felt a twinge of guilt. It had not been his intention to hurt Jin or waste her time. And the few hours spent with her had been pleasant enough. Maybe if he really was this Lee, things could be different.
I'm not Lee. I'm Zuko. And Mai is the only girl I've ever…
What did he feel for Mai exactly? In so many ways she was his opposite, all cool reserve and restrained emotions while he raged and wept and fumed, all his feelings so close to the surface. But whatever their dissimilarities, and he longed sometimes for that blasé indifference Mai had perfected, they shared something too. Each was an outcast of sorts. Neither quite fit the mold that certain family members expected them to. Each felt alone, unappreciated, different. They had an understanding of sorts and when together, the rest of the world, with all its expectations and judgments and criticism, vaporized. Mai was free to be Mai. And Zuko was free to be Zuko. What a feeling that was; liberating, uplifting.
Maybe, just maybe, he was worth something after all. Mai once enjoyed spending time with him, sitting by the pond or on a bench, bodies just touching, words unnecessary and extraneous. She liked him and when Zuko had finally worked up the courage to kiss her, just days before his banishment, Mai had not resisted. She had kissed back, harder and blushed so prettily. He had fallen in love, as only a thirteen year old boy could. And that feeling of wonder had never quite left him.
The years had failed to tarnish the memory. It lived, a bright little light, somewhere in both his heart and his mind. He wondered if Mai ever gave him a thought. Zuko wondered if the black haired beauty with an affinity for knives and sarcasm, hoped that she would see him again. Such a meeting seemed an impossibility now. More than just distance separated them. Three years away had changed Zuko, embittered him and opened his eyes to some terrible truths. But his essence was the same, wasn't it? Would Mai see that? Would she accept him? Would she love him?
The lamps glowed with a yellow warmth, tiny suns, casting their light down on the water of the fountain. The liquid seemed alive, just as the small flames did, flames that he, Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation, had created. That act of creation, though he'd had to hide it, had almost made him feel whole again. One day, perhaps soon, he hoped to light a lantern for Mai and stare at the flickering reflection in her beautiful eyes.