It had been much too long since Sokka had had meat. A hunting trip was in order... but unfortunately, a certain firebender was being rather uncooperative.

"Come on, Zuko! Don't you want to spend some male bonding time together, bro to bro?"

Zuko didn't even look up from where he was sitting on the Air Temple's stone floor, poring over a scroll in front of him.

"What, the whole Boiling Rock thing wasn't enough 'bro time' for you?" The words 'bro time' were framed loosely in air quotes.

"Jailbreaks don't count as bro time!"

"Mmhm." He was barely paying attention. Sokka decided it was time for drastic measures.

He launched himself at the scroll, snatching it away from Zuko and catching him off guard. Zuko quickly recovered, however, and the two scuffled for it in a tangle of limbs.

"Hey — ouch — give it back!"

"Not until — oof! Not until you say you're coming with me!"

"OW! Quit pulling my hair!"

Somehow or other, Sokka got hold of the scroll again and disentangled himself, taking several steps out of range. Zuko stood up as well and started to advance on him, but Sokka held the scroll high over his head.

"Uh-uh! You're going hunting with me" — he got an idea and quickly glanced at the title of the scroll — "or I'll tell everyone that Mr. Tough Firebender is reading Love Amongst the Dragons."

Zuko's mouth opened and closed indignantly. Finally, after several moments, he snatched the scroll back with a look that could burn.

"Fine."

And he stalked off to get ready, muttering to himself about Love Amongst the Dragons being a very respected Fire Nation play that by no means whatsoever would be a detriment to his dignity if, hypothetically, he were ever caught — er, discovered — reading it.

Zuko had to wonder if Sokka knew what he was doing.

It had been half an hour since they had set off into the woods by the Air Temple. So far the amount of meat they had caught added up to an impressive zero.

In all fairness to him, Sokka might have done better were they looking for more arctic creatures, native to the South Pole where he had learned to hunt. But as there were markedly more rabbit-squirrels here than there were puffin-seals, his previous hunting experience wasn't doing them much good.

Sure, he could spot camouflaged animals faster than Zuko could, but his approach on catching his prey — namely, charging at it with machete in hand, making more noise than a bull pig in a china shop — rather negated that effort.

Zuko's inner complaining was interrupted, however, when Sokka threw an arm across his chest, halting him in his tracks. He'd seen something, again.

Zuko looked around, keeping his head turned just slightly to the left, using his better eye to take in the scene. There it was - yet another rabbit-squirrel, digging by the base of a tree for some unknown, delectable treasure.

Already anticipating Sokka's… unorthodox hunting strategy to come into play, Zuko decided to take things into his own hands, and he quietly unsheathed a knife hidden in his boot.

By the time Sokka had wildly run at the creature, it was already neatly pinned to the tree with a small thrown dagger.

Sokka spluttered as Zuko calmly walked over, pulled his knife out, and handed the animal to him.

"What — where did that come from?!" Sokka yelped, gesturing wildly with his eyes still on the knife.

"Uncle gave it to me when I was ten years old," Zuko replied, smiling. He couldn't help feeling a little smug at the stupefied expression still plastered on Sokka's face as he sat down and cleaned the blade on the grass.

"Wait — so you mean to tell me that the whole time you were chasing Aang, you could have just thrown a knife and had it done with?"

Vexed, Zuko replied, "I never wanted to kill him, just hand him over to my father is all."

"You could have pinned his clothes against a wall or something!" (Subconsciously, Sokka wasn't sure why he was arguing this.)

"Yeah, because that's going to hold the Avatar. Besides, it wouldn't have been an honorable fight. I wanted to win against him."

"Really? So kidnapping him at the North Pole, while he was literally outside of his body, is a more honorable way of winning than throwing a knife?"

"Oh, shut up, I was getting desperate." He finished cleaning the dagger and stood up, sheathing it in his boot once more.

"Wait, let me see that," Sokka said, and Zuko handed the knife to him. He inspected it, turning it over to look at both sides. The handle was black with lighter trim on the sides, and there was a gold circle by the blade. The blade itself looked to be made out of fine pearl. There was an inscription: "Never give up without a fight."

"This looks like a decorative knife," Sokka remarked.

"Oh, it's functional," Zuko replied, "more intended for slicing than throwing, but…" He shrugged, as though to say that unconventional weapon use has its place in battle (and in hunting).

A thought occurred to Sokka. "If Katara knew that you've had a hidden knife on your person this whole time…"

Zuko's eyes widened, and he quickly took his knife back. "Please don't tell her," he begged as he sheathed the dagger once again. "She's got enough reasons not to trust me already."

"If anything, this is a reason to trust you more, though," Sokka chuckled. "We're alone in the woods. If you wanted to stab me, you would have done it already. And you've had plenty of opportunities to get Aang."

Zuko just shook his head. "There's no way she'll take it like that." He mimicked Katara. "'Oh hooray, so he didn't stab another human being. We should get him an award! Ha! He was probably just waiting for a better opportunity to do it.'"

Sokka stared.

"What?" Zuko asked nervously, breaking out of character.

"Did you…?" He shook his head. "That was a really good impression."

Zuko flushed slightly. "Oh, um… heh."

"...We should probably get back to hunting now. And this time, you take the lead with the knife."

"Which you won't tell Katara about, right?"

"..."

"Sokka?"

Sokka replied with a mock-thinking face. "Hold on, I'm contemplating what conditions I should add before agreeing. I'm thinking laundry duty, cleaning Appa, letting me borrow your swords for a week— ow!" Zuko had smacked him lightly over the head, and Sokka dropped the fake seriousness in favor of a mischievous grin.

"What? I'm not above blackmail."

"You're not above anything, Sokka."

"Oh, har har."

"I could just keep going hunting with you."

"Sounds good to me. As long as I get credit for whatever you catch."

Zuko considered this for a moment. "Fine by me," and they started moving through the forest once again.