I don't own the Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters.

Peanuts

By: MrJensen alias Last Butterfly


"…and that's how I won the tournament for the sixth time." Toph was grinning while sitting beside the Fire Prince who only managed to try mumbling something – probably some kind of protest – but the blind girl closed her eyes before going on. "And then there was that time when I…"

Zuko let a great deal of air out through his nose before letting his upper body fall into a lying position on the grass. This was vengeance indeed. If he hadn't been afraid of choking because of his own tongue then he might have tried to fall asleep. After all she could not actually see him closing or opening his eyes, right?

It all happened too fast. They were having lunch and then, while still eating a cake of some kind, he felt strange. After swallowing, his tongue seemed to be bigger as if he had bitten on a bee. As he thought about it then he could imagine how the waterbender would have tried something like that against him… but he knew that he should have felt that somehow previously. And just after some awkward attempts to question the above mentioned cook, and only when his lips grew bigger did she ask whether he had troubles with a certain type of nut or not…

"…and then this guy yelled in: 'send her home Boulder'! Then I got so mad that…!"

This is hell… I died and Agni thought this was what I deserved. The firebender groaned while covering his eyes, but when he heard low steps nearing him he lowered his hands enough to see a pair of dark boots. His golden eyes slowly trailed upwards on blue clothing, finally stopping at the waterbender's face. The sun was just behind her, making her hair glisten in the sun while covering a certain smug expression as she was looking down at him with crossed arms.

The begging in his eyes might have actually meant something because she heaved a sigh before turning to the Blind Bandit. "Toph, I think you should leave him be for now," She said before flashing a smirk at him. "His simple mind might explode under too much information." Oh, now he could see her true colours… With the lack of words he only scowled at her defiantly, trying to express his own thoughts with this simple gesture so that even her simple mind could understand.

"Ah, all right…" Toph spoke and punched him in the arm before standing up. "Nice talk we had there, Zuzu."

Zuko only scoffed but did not let his narrow gaze move away from a certain pair of blue eyes.

Katara on the other hand peeked at the bickering earthbender then hopped down to the younger girl's previous place. She looked at him before asking indifferently. "So how are you?"

He tried to move his tongue in his mouth but of course it did not cooperate.

"Oh of course, you cannot answer… too bad."

When she flashed a smile like her brother used to, his expressions darkened a bit. At least show some empathy, woman! This is your fault to begin with! His inner self roared, but all she could see of that was a glare.

"But…" She shook her head before wrapping her arms around her bent knees. "All right, a part of me feels bad for you as I could not heal this."

Oh sure, now you say that.

"But you know what?" This time as she turned her head towards him, he found himself elbowing up at once. She was smiling. Truly smiling at him, and not mocking him like before. His expressions eased to a slight frown with wonder as she spoke. "This somehow makes it easier to be around you."

Ok, I don't think I got that…

"I mean," She waved to the side. "Aang finally perfected two or three of his moves," She started to play with the grass with one of her hands, her gaze leaving his to concentrate on that. "Sokka lost to you but did not say a word about it,"

Zuko looked at the clouds above them as he thought about that afternoon. That was right. The avatar was not worried what he would say, because at the moment it had been physically impossible. And the Water Tribe boy seemed to feel some kind of empathy, and even mentioned something about her sister's incapability when he had two hooks in his thumb…

"And look at Toph," She smiled on. "She never spent this much time with anyone, much less did she talk about the Earth Rumble Tournament."

She's very detailed… He inwardly sighed, but then his good eyebrow rose at another way of thinking. If she could see she could pick this as a profession too.

Katara slightly frowned at her hand and the grass then cleared her throat before mumbling. "And even I can talk to you now, funny how life is sometimes."

The prince frowned slightly as he sat up, slightly bowing his head to the side. There was something… different about her from that moment. The way her eyes shifted to him before returning to her fingers was a sign of some kind. Too bad his simple mind as she put so well did not know what to think of it yet.

He felt it would be the time to say something, after all that was how things should go. But as his proper state made that impossible, he did something else.

'Destiny is a funny thing my nephew…'

One of his hands reached out to hers, his fingers meeting hers upon the grass and from the corner of his eyes he could see how she slightly shivered by this simple thing.

'You never know how things are going to work out, but if you keep an open mind… and an open heart,'

At first she was surprised. Her hand stopped as she was looking at the way his fingers circled hers in a gentle manner. Then her gaze slowly met his and as he smiled at her in a way she never knew he could, she did nothing to hide the small blush coming to her face unlike before…

'I promise you'll find your own destiny some day.'

A/N: Hi there! ^^; Sorry for the lack of updates but I had to write my diploma. XD Ehm, personally I have some troubles – I've managed to fail on this final exam thing at the university and I can only try it again half a year from now. O__o I'm depressed because of this while I know well that I should learn to this other exam – which will be 2 days from now, but I realized how I needed some boost for that.

So I brought you sommme Zutara~ mwuhaha! (Nothing could make me feel better than this two! ^^)

The peanut allergy was Xyzisme's idea, I hope you like it! O__O I'm new at requests... (I started reading your fic too, XD but at the moment I don't seem to be able to finish anything… sorry, I will correct this mistake during the summer though!) ^^

I'll try to get back on my feet myself, but you could prove that the life is still good in some ways…

*coughcommentplz?cough*X3

Have a nice week~