Night finally slowed Sokka's pace, and the gang was allowed to slow. Appa groaned in appreciation for a rest. Aang and Katara collapsed next to him, leaning against his fluffy legs.

"So tired…" Aang muttered.

"So hungry." Katara said, and climbed up onto Appa's saddle, shuffling through their supplies. "Is this all we have? Dried meat and fruits?"

Sokka scowled at her over his campfire. "Well, there's always Momo!" the lemur in question screeched, "We'll get food as soon as we get to Nishe."

"Nishe…"Aang murmured in his sleep.

Katara descended from the bison and knelt next to her brother. "I don't see why we can't fly. We lost that girl over the swamp, even Aang thinks so."

"Look, we barely made it out of that fight the first time, and I don't think we could get lucky enough again. That girl has lightening! I thought Zuko was bad enough."

"What do you think happened to him?" Katara leaned her head on her knees.

"Who cares? He's off of our tails now."

Sokka yawned, stressing the point that he wasn't bothered by the prince's predicament.

"I just find it a little strange that we haven't seen him since we left the North Pole, that's all."

"Katara, seriously, who cares?"

xxx

Haru liked to talk. Haru liked to talk a lot.

Zuko didn't like to talk. Zuko didn't like to talk at all.

Needless to say, Zuko was seconds away from seeing if there was a difference between a burnt earth bender and any other burnt person. But Li wasn't a fire bender, so Li wouldn't know.

Zuko stopped at dusk and made a camp beside the road. Haru followed him and spread a bedroll on the ground.

Zuko sat on his pack.

"It's cold." Zuko spat conversationally.

Haru nodded. "It sure is."

Neither one made a move to make a fire. Frustration was being stoked with increasing speed within the prince.

"Should… probably make a fire." He growled.

"Yup." Haru acknowledged

"With… fire wood."

"Sounds good to me."

"So…"

Zuko hated doing things on his own, and he hated not being able to just send a flame from his fingertips, but most of all, he hated being cold.

He suppressed a snarl, and struggled blindly in the darkness to find wood. Haru watched him as he haphazardly threw the twigs down into a pile.

Then it occurred to Zuko that he didn't know how to make fire without bending.

"Have you ever been in love, Li?" Haru asked as his focus strayed to the stars that were beginning to burn holes in the inky exterior of the earth.

"No…" Zuko growled, as he tried unsuccessfully to rub two sticks together to make a flame.

"Really? No girl has ever caught your attention?"

"No." Who had the time for such childish mannerisms?

"That's a shame. It's a good feeling to be in love."

"Hm."

"Are you having some trouble?"

"No!"

"Do you know that shoes don't make fire?"

Zuko stopped beating his shoe against the logs at once. "Yes, I know."

"Then what are doing?"

"I'm testing the logs, of course. How else would you test logs?"

"Why test them if you're just going to burn them?"

At this point, Zuko would really have preferred to toss a particularly large flame in the direction of Haru's smirking face, but Li was physically incapable of doing so.

"If you know so much, why don't you start the fire?" Zuko spat.

Haru shrugged, "Okay. Do you want me to teach you?"

"No! Just do it!"

Zuko stomped off into the forest, presumably to take some of his frustrations on some logs that Li couldn't flame.

xxx

Katara couldn't sleep. Sandwiched between Aang's twitching form (his bad dreams were becoming more and more frequent) and Sokka's loud, snoring bulk, Katara found no quiet or comfortable place to even think. She tried to stretch out on Appa's saddle, but her fingers were soon too numb to feel.

So she sat by the fire, staring into the receding bed of coals, and wondering whatever became of that horrible excuse of a fighter, Prince Zuko.

xxx

"You'll never guess who I'm thinking about now." Haru said after Zuko had returned to the camp to see a perfectly formed blaze. With a jealous jolt, Zuko realized the earth boy had made the fire without incident.

Zuko's cheek twitched. "Your mother."

"No, but she is a woman. Guess."

"Katara, then."

"Yea! You're getting good!"

A few more hours of this and I'll go insane, Zuko thought. There seemed to be no end in the boy's useless banter. There was honestly nothing impressive about that girl, anyway.

"I wonder what she's doing now…" Haru said dreamily.

"With the Avatar." Zuko replied matter-of-factly.

"You think so?"

"Yes." Would he have said so if he didn't think so?

"I wonder what she's thinking about now…"

"The Avatar."

"Or maybe something else besides him."

"I doubt it."

"Really? Say, where are you from anyway? Did the Avatar ever pass through your village?"

Zuko hesitated, wondering how to answer.

"I knew people that saw him, but I never saw him."

"Did you see Katara?"

"No."

"Too bad. She has the prettiest blue eyes."

Zuko suddenly considered how it felt to be Haru. He discussed his greatest passions with strangers. Zuko could barely even bring himself to think about his own problems to himself.

"Yes," Zuko said without thinking, "She does."

"What?"

"Uh… I'm sure she does."

"Yea. You'll never guess what my favorite part about her is though."

"How long did you know her anyway?"

"It was a good two or three days."

"Two or three days? That's all? And you're completely in love with her?"

"Yea. Guess what my favorite thing about her is."

"I don't know."

"Guess."

"I don't know!"

"I love how she gets so sad when she talks about her mother. She's beautiful when she's sad."

"Why is she sad when she talks about her mother?"

"Because she's dead, why else would she be sad?"

"Oh."

'My mother's necklace! Where did you get that?'

The deep cerulean ribbon and glowing white stone had attracted Zuko's attention at once. He knew it had been the water bender's. He had picked it up, without knowing why he had done so. Before his men could see, he had shoved the stolen trinket into his sleeve. When he had revealed it to the girl, she had been furious to see that he had it.

"So her necklace is important to her?" Zuko wondered aloud gloomily.

"Yea, it is." Haru's expression suddenly sharpened, "How did you know about her necklace?"

Zuko blanched, "You… told me, remember?"

"I did?"

"Yes, you did."

"Oh, yea. I almost forgot." Haru yawned. "Well, we should go to sleep now. It's been great talking to you, Li."

"Talking at me." Zuko muttered in reply.

Haru was asleep within minutes. His snoring and heaving shoulders were dead give aways to his slumber. Zuko had more trouble falling asleep. Thoughts and memories he had choked down for months finally resurfaced; harassing him until he finally gave up sleeping altogether.

The ground was too hard; he was used to a decent bed, servants to bring him something to munch on (he hadn't eaten hardly anything decent since they'd left the healer's house). Haru had food. Zuko was very aware that Haru's bundle contained dried meats and a lovely crust of bread.

The prince sat up, the promise of food drawing him closer to the pack. Without disturbing the earth bender, he shifted through his belongings. There was food, and a spare pair of boots, a thick shirt, a pair of wool socks, a nice hunting knife, and a jar of…rocks. He could take it all. By the time Haru realized Zuko was gone, he could be in Nishe with medicine for his uncle.

Zuko stood, pack in hand.

It would be easy. Taking the bird had been easy, too.

Iroh had disapproved. Iroh would disapprove of this as well.