Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar The Last Air Bender

The sound of the insects was even louder on the way back to the cliff and certainly there were a lot more insects, where they had previously kept to the undergrowth and trees before they now swarmed everywhere. It was driving Katara mad. It wasn't as if she had never been an in insect friendly environment before, it was just that she usually had Momo with her to dispose of any insects flying around her head. In his absence Katara took to swiping a hand in front of her feet every few steps

"There aren't this many bugs in the temple, how can you stand it?"

She demanded turning to Zuko who wasn't doing anything to prevent the small flying insects from swarming around his face.

"It's because of the Paddy, they breed here and I'm used to this, I live here"

Katara snorted

"You live in a giant palace with a personal servant to swat away the bugs" She said a small hint of the poison which had been absent all night creeping back into her voice for the briefest of seconds. Zuko gave a humourless smile, true he had lived in a palace with a personal servant to swat bugs.

"In the Earth Kingdom my Uncle," Zuko felt a hitch in his voice as he mentioned his Uncle he forced himself not to think about where his Uncle could be and what had taken place between them before the Day of Black Sun and continued.

"My Uncle and myself spent half the time being eaten alive by Mosquito wasps,we had bites all over our arms and legs."

Katara nodded along

"Us aswell, You should have seen Aang's head! It was covered in bites, he couldn't stop scratching them we had to wrap his hands together at night just so he wouldn't scratch in his sleep, they were really nasty, he got so desperate at one point he tried to bite through the cloth"

Katara laughed. Remembering the groups journey through the Earth Kingdom, Both Aang and Toph had proven to be irresistible to the annoying insects and were constantly sporting red angry bites on just about every area of exposed skin. For some reason however they had avoided both her and Sokka like they had a plague.

"Mine got infected" Zuko said, Katara stopped laughing.

Once again they continued in silence.

Or at least it was silent until a low buzzing whine quite unlike the cries of the other insects became clear. For a while Katara's mind didn't even register it, like the ringing noise you only heard if it was quiet enough and you concentrated on it. Zuko didn't notice it either, but this was his home he had spent his summers on Ember Island palace where the rooms were really little more than poles holding up a roof to keep them cool with only a gauzy net dropping down from the ceiling to cover his bed stopped the ever present and loud insects from biting him. It was like how the men who worked the mines said that after a while they no longer heard the sound of the machinery, although considering just how loud the machinery was they didn't really hear much of anything.

Then the buzzing started getting louder to the point where it was no longer ignorable, and Zuko realised he had very little idea where he and Katara were. There had been a path an albeit very worn and overgrown, so that it was barely recognisable as a path leading to the rice paddies from the temple. He and Katara had followed it to the paddy, but now as he looked around in the dimming light of the lantern, nothing that even resembled a path could be seen. He was certain they were still headed towards the cliff, years at sea had given Zuko a reasonably good scene of direction as far as telling where North and South were, but they were most definitely in an unknown part of the jungle. Still no problem, they could find the cliff edge and walk along it until they found the rope and the way down. Like following a river. He would have still been wandering around in the Earth Kingdom flats if he hadn't figured out that every shanty town he passed through was built next to or within walking distance of a river, he had followed a single trickle of muddy water through several settlements until he discovered something a little more interesting to follow, the tracks of a Fire Nation tank.

Katara was almost certain this wasn't the way they came. For one thing she could swear the path they had taken to the rice paddy hadn't been marred by nearly so many overgrown plants. She cursed silently as her foot caught on yet another tree root, barely managing to catch herself from falling into Zuko who was walking a few steps ahead of her.

"You okay?"

Zuko asked looking over his shoulder. Katara nodded.

"I just tripped over a tree root, are you sure this is the way we came?"

She asked cringing as her foot snagged on another tree root. Zuko put a hand on her arm to steady her before she could stumble forward.

"It's not, but we just need to get to the cliff edge and follow it back to the temple"

"If we can the edge in this light" Katara scoffed.

Ah, Zuko had forgotten about that, note to self walk a little more carefully. Last thing he wanted was to stride off a cliff.

"Just stay close to me and you'll be fine"

Katara couldn't stop herself from laughing.

Even in the darkness there was just so much to take in walking through the Fire Nation jungle, sure she couldn't see much, only what the light of Zuko's lantern allowed but there were other things to experience, for example for at least the least fifteen minutes Katara had been able to smell a sweet flowery scent she hadn't caught a single glance of any flowers but they smelt wonderful, light and gentle without a hint of the usual sharpness that followed the flowers she usually smelt. Katara to be honest had never really had much luck when it came to flowers, She had come from a culture where affection was expressed through the giving of boiled fat, what could you expect? It was symbolic of course, the fat could be used to make lamps or to cook with or to rub on wounds, so giving it meant a desire to see the receiver to be warm, healthy and well fed, preferably with the giver. The first flower she encountered up close had been a small blue thing clinging desperately to the edge of the path she Sokka and Aang had taken up the Southern Air Temple. He had excitedly pointed it out to her.

"Look Katara it's an Air Poppy, I haven't seen one in a hundred years, they normally don't flower this late!"

He had plucked the flower and held it up to her nose. Katara had been in no place to be admiring flora, she was tired from walking, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the world beyond the south pole which was so unlike anything she had ever experienced and to top it all off the altitude the Air Temple was at was making her feel dizzy and slightly nauseous. She had practically choked over the flowers scent breathing in a large amount of pollen and sneezing all over the first Air Poppy Aang had seen in a hundred years. Of course Air Poppies didn't smell anywhere near as heavenly as what she was smelling now. She took in a a deep breath, she loved Fire Nation flowers. Ahead of her Zuko sneezed.

"Damn Night Jasmine" He sniffed

"Night Jasmine?"

"Surely you can smell it. It only flowers at night and it grows just about everywhere"

Zuko's voice was thick and he sniffed again rubbing his forearm against his eyes, Katara frowned

"Are You crying?

"No! It's these Agni Forsaken flowers, they're making my eyes water"

Zuko sniffed. Katara once again couldn't stop herself from laughing.

"You get Hay fever! I can't believe the prince of the Fire Nation suffers from hay fever!"

"I do not, there's just too much pollen in the air"

He sneezed again. Katara nodded in a way that suggested she would have, had she not been carrying a basket of Cat toads, crossed her arms across her chest.

"There's a name for that you know, it's hay fever."

Zuko grit his teeth, he could stand the insults and barbs, really he could, no skin off his back, growing up with Azula had given him a skin thicker than a Komodo Rhino's. He supposed that was one thing he was thankful to his family for, growing up with them had definitely done something for his determination and resilience. But the thing that was bothering him about Katara was that she would almost let her guard down around him but before he could claim any ground in the battle field that stretched between them her defences went up again. The barb was reattached to her tongue and she once again hated him. It was all she had been doing all night and it was getting damned infuriating!

What would Uncle do if presented with a waterbender who spent half her time snapping at him and the other half being almost nice to him, And more importantly why did he always ask what his Uncle would have done had he been in the same situation ? Of course all of Zuko's further musings were interrupted by a low growl erupted from somewhere in the undergrowth.

STORY NOTES

Insect bites: Most people are familier with insect bites especially mosquito ones, they're mostly in western civilisations just plain annyoing put in some regions of Africa and Asia Mosquito bites can lead to disease and infection. Also mosquito's breed in water.

Night Jasmine: This particular type of jasmine flowers only at night like most jasmine it is considered to be , in some regions at least, weed

Altidude sickness: A common and treatable, at least by today's medical standards, infliction that occurs in the body when it is in area's of higer altidude. Baiscally if you aren't used to being in high area's your body with begin to suffer a lack of oxygen due to the thinner air. Symptoms include headaches nausea and in exterem cases the lungs will fill will water and the victim will drown at several thousand metres above sea level. People who live in higher altidudes are used to the air and therefore don't suffer from altidude sickness.