A/N: This is late because I wanted to do a 2nd person thing, but then I, just before submitting the document, remembered that thsi site has something against 2nd person, so I had to re-write it, but since it was pretty late, I put it off a little. So I went with Appa instead, because she doesn't get enough attention.
Disclaimer: I do not ownAppa had seen his fair share of fighting in his time. Much too often, he had been its victim. Luckily, not when Zuko and Katara argued (read: battled) about one another's opinion, hair, clothes, cooking, just about anything, really. Even the Western Airtemple's architecture! Yet nobody ever was truly hurt. Except for the two's egos, perhaps.
But Appa knew the fighting between Zuko and Katara, that was something different to normal arguments. He'd seen those kinds of quarrels long ago, in a time before the war, between two monks at the Southern Airtemple. He knew there were romantic feeling between them, and they were to proud - or stupid - to act on them. At least Zuko was happy to confide in Appa whenever he was annoyed at Katara. Or in rarer cases, angry. Or, as the often-grumpy firebender was today, sad.
"You know Appa," the ex-prince said, leaning back onto the bison's furry back and folding his hands behind his head, " there are times where I really hate myself for ever talking to her in Ba Sing Se. Then I wouldn't have gotten close to her only to leave her, and I wouldn't be where I am now, fighting for her respect and forgiveness all day long. Though I'd probably still want it, even if I hadn't betrayed her and already had it."
He hesitated.
"Do you ever look at yourself when you're thinking or talking about someone and think, 'Wow, you must be in love with her? Why the fuck-'" Appa forgave him for the use of language, as it was clearly an emotional moment - "'did you have to go and betray her trust like that, then? Now you're working three times as hard to regain it as you already would have if you hadn't betrayed her, dumbass,' and you just want to kill yourself?"
Appa did not know this feeling, but he did know Katara's silhouette heading out to gather firewood, and how to deliver a certain firebender right in front of her nose, so that fate could run its course.
