Mend
Zuko sat with legs crossed, bent over his sleeveless haori. He had spent the better part of the morning digging through the multitude of dusty drawers and creaky cabinets spread throughout the Royal Estate on Ember Island. Afterwards he pricked his fingers about a half a hundred times with the needle and thread he had eventually found. The work was slow and tedious but Zuko was determined to utilize the mysterious art of sewing to reunite the golden collar to the crimson body of his garment.
He held it up to the light to examine his work.
"Wow, that looks terrible," Katara said, looking over his shoulder.
"I think it came out ok." Zuko said optimistically.
"Really?" Katara asked sounding doubtful.
"No. It's terrible," Zuko relented to reality. Long uneven stitches just barely kept the two bits of fabric together, large puckers hung out the seam where they met at odd angles.
"Have you ever sewn anything before?" Katara asked.
"Of course not. I wasn't going to catch the Avatar with a needle and thread," Zuko said.
"Did you even secure your thread?" She asked, picking at one of the loose ends. With one motion an hours work came sliding out of the fabric, leaving the body and collar hanging free of each other once again.
"Katara!" Zuko cried out in horror. "That took me so long..." He sounded defeated.
"Sorry," she said, "do you want me to show you how to do it properly?"
"Can you!?" Zuko asked, sounding as shocked to learn she could sew as he would be to learn she could firebend.
"Clearly your royal education left something to be desired," Katara teased.
"Hey if you ever need someone to recite hundred year old poetry, or sit in seiza for forty five minutes before ceremonially accepting a cup of tea, I'm your guy." Zuko joked back.
Katara smiled at his attempt at humor before seating herself beside him.
"Here," she said gingerly taking the work from him. "First you need to make a knot in your thread so it doesn't pull through your fabric." Zuko watched with fascination as she deftly threaded the needle and knotted the thread. Then she found the start of the damage.
"Also your stitches were way too long. The smaller and tighter the stitches the stronger the seam," she explained. Quickly the two pieces of fabric drew together.
"And I thought I was doing well..." Zuko said as he mentally compared his efforts to Katara's.
"Really?" Katara asked raising an eyebrow.
"Well I don't know!" he said looking away as a wave of embarrassment washed over him.
"It's ok Zuko," she replied gently, "everyone has to start somewhere." Her eyes stayed locked to her work as she spoke. Quickly and precisely she joined the two pieces of cloth together stitch by stitch and inch by inch.
Once again taking on the tone of a teacher she said, "Then, when you've finished off the work, you knot it like this and pull it through to hide it." Almost like a magic trick she wound the thread around the needle, pulled it tight into a small knot, and with one last stitch and a tug it vanished inside the fabric. Zuko couldn't even see where the repair had been. In five minutes Katara had managed something Zuko took an hour to fail at.
"That's amazing," he said.
Katara beamed a proud smile as a hint of blush painted her cheeks. "Well I have had a lot of practice," she bragged.
She held the garment out to Zuko who took it carefully. As he did so his hand brushed up against hers. Feeling her soft skin beneath his fingers sent a shock up his arms and made his heart skip a beat. The way Katara suddenly pulled her hands back made him wonder if she felt it too. He didn't linger long on the thought, he wasn't ready to unpack those feelings just yet.
"Sorry," he said.
"For what?" Katara asked.
"For making you fix my haori. I should have been able to handle something like this myself," he explained.
"I offered to help, so you don't need to apologize," she explained. "No one can do everything and it's ok to ask for help."
"But it seems like such a simple thing," Zuko said.
"We all have different strengths. Look at Sokka, he couldn't darn a sock to save his life but he planned an assault on the Fire Nation capital and helped invent air balloons," Katara responded.
"What's darning?" Zuko asked, then after a heartbeat, "WAIT Sokka invented air balloons!?"
Katara failed to conceal a giggle behind her hand as she said, "I mean he helped." Then once Zuko's shock and the risk of laughter had passed she continued, "And darning is a way of fixing a hole in fabric."
"If you get a hole in a sock why not just replace it?" Zuko asked.
Katara stared at him as if he had casually suggested replacing a house instead of a sock before saying, "Living in a palace must have been nice."
"Honestly in a lot of ways it really was," Zuko said.
"If you ever get back to palace living you better show how good it can be," Katara said. As she said it something popped into Zuko's mind. Thoughts of Katara dressed in the garb of Fire Nation royalty walking arm and arm with Zuko through the palace, sitting side by side at a banquet, reclining at the royal apartments of the palace sipping tea. It reminded him of a married couple. He felt his face glowing red.
"That... sounds nice," Zuko said contemplatively.
"What?" Katara asked looking confused. Zuko immediately realized his imagination had taken a leap Katara hadn't intended.
"I mean... sure. Yeah. Of course I'll show you what palace life is like. As an honored guest I mean," he stammered out.
"Are you feeling alright?" Katara asked.
"Yup, I'm fine. Just fine," he managed just starting to regain his composure.
"Ok. Well I'm going to get going now," Katara said standing up.
"Thank you," Zuko said as she turned to leave, "for fixing my haori."
"Anytime," Katara said with a smile.
After she left he spent some time examining her repair. The straight tight line of stitches was almost indistinguishable from the professional seams flanking it, even up close. As Zuko shrugged the garment on and wound his belt around his waist he let his mind wander back to the idea of living with Katara, but this time not in the Fire Nation Palace. Instead he wondered about a life of labor in the Southern Water Tribe. Fishing and hunting for dinner, raising homes out of packed ice, darning socks whatever that meant.
Somehow, as long as he thought of Katara there beside him, it seemed no less happy a life than the luxury of the Fire Nation.