The others had arrived by the time they left the room. "Where were you two?" Sokka demanded. Katara blushed slightly.
"Um, one, we're sharing a room so don't blow it, and two, we got lost," Katara lied. They hadn't gotten lost; they had spent a good ten minutes talking before Zuko had kissed her, then had spent another five minutes in each other's arms, Katara trying to figure out what just happened and enjoying the feel of Zuko's arms around her, Zuko trying to figure out his emotions. (He thought only girls got this confused about emotions.) When they finally heard the groan of Appa greeting Aang, they left the room.
Sokka didn't hear the part about "getting lost". He became deaf after "sharing a room". "No, no, no, no, no! You are not going to share a room with him! He forced you to do that, didn't he?"
"Sokka, grow up! I asked to share the room," lied Katara, again. She wasn't going to get Toph yelled at for a dare again. "I'm fifteen now, bro. I can take care of myself when it comes to guys."
("You really think I'd do that?" Zuko whispered.)
("Not really, but you know Sokka.") Katara spoke a little louder. "If he tries anything, I'll scream. Trust me; you know how loud I can scream."
"Yeah. I still haven't fully regained my hearing yet," he muttered. "Fine. But if he hurts you, Katara, I swear on Mom's grave that'll I'll kill him."
"No need for that," Zuko said. "I would rather turn myself in to my sister than purposely hurt your sister."
With a promise like that, how could Sokka argue? Reluctantly he nodded and got on Appa to dig for his and Ty Lee's bags. Aang threw down the rest, tossing Iroh's bags to him. "Thank you, Avatar Aang. Now, to find a room…" With that, Iroh ambled off.
Aang looked at the temple with a depressed look in his eyes. "Are you okay, Aang?" Katara asked. Toph turned to her pupil.
"Hey, why don't you show me around this giant place? It's gotta be bigger than the Bei Fong Estate and the Earthbending Tournament Square put together." Aang perked up at knowing something his Earthbending teacher didn't know and getting to brag about it.
"Okay! Warning, though, I've only seen sketches of it, but I have them burned in my memory! Come on!" He jumped off Appa, grabbed Toph's bags and his bag, then headed inside to show Toph around, leaving Zuko and Katara alone.
They grabbed the remaining bags and went back to their room. Katara set down the ones she carried and dug out a blanket.
"I'm going to cover the window so it stays warmer in here. I think there may have been curtains in here at one time, but they disintegrated over time," she explained, kneeling on the bed under the window. Zuko nodded and started to finish unpacking.
It took a good ten minutes, what with all the stuff they had gotten from Lakai. Most of it was practical, like the cloth, food, and herbs, but some of it, like the incense, was just pointless. "No wonder she and my uncle got along so well," Zuko muttered, taking out a rather fancy incense burner. "They have the same eccentric shopping tastes." Katara laughed when she saw the burner.
"Think of it this way; at least you have something to help calm you down. What scents of incense did she give us?" Zuko shrugged and took out the various colored boxes holding the incense. He opened one of them, a dark red color.
"Roses, I think." He handed a small piece of it to Katara, who smelled it. She sneezed.
"Achoo! Sorry, definitely roses. What's this one?" She took a white box. Smelling the incense inside, she smiled. "Snow lotus! Where'd she get all these weird scents of incense?"
Zuko shrugged. The only incense he had ever burned was one of the standard scents found in the Fire Nation, a sharp cinnamon scent. The other one was basically scentless, just cedar. Katara looked down at the incense, shrugged as well, then continued to discover the scents.
"Moon peach, water lily, and…what's this one?" She had found a black and white box, the colors making a yin yang symbol. The scent was one she wasn't familiar with. "Hey Zuko, do you recognize this one?" She handed him a piece of the incense, colored black.
The memories that flooded the former prince nearly made him cry. The black pieces smelled just like his mother's perfume, nutmeg or cinnamon or whatever spice it was. Katara noticed and gently took it back, picking up a white piece instead. "Odd…"she murmured. "It's white, but it smells like…like Mom."
"I thought the South Pole had no contact with the outside world until you found Aang," Zuko said. "How does it smell like your mother?"
"We had some contact. Kyoshi was just a few days boat ride away. But Mom always smelled like the apples or pumpkins Dad would bring home every so often in the fall. Always, even when we hadn't had them in months." Katara closed her eyes as she returned the incense and closed the box. Tears started to roll down her face.
Slowly, Zuko placed a hand on Katara's shoulder, hoping to comfort her. Katara collapsed against his chest, crying softly. "I miss her so much," she gasped.
Zuko wrapped his arms around her. "I know," he murmured. "I miss my mother, too."
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Dinner that night was eaten in the huge dining hall of the temple. Toph was sitting in between Ty Lee and Katara, gushing about how Aang was so good at descriptions.
"Not even Mom and Dad were that good, and they'd spent twelve years with me!" Ty Lee and Katara looked at each other over Toph's head.
"How much longer?" Ty Lee mouthed.
"A week at least," Katara replied. Ty Lee nodded in agreement.
It was nice to be able to eat and not rush in case of an attack from Madame Freaky Chick, as Toph called Azula. ("Do you give nicknames to everyone you meet?" "Yup. That other girl, with the knifes? Even I can tell that she's depressed, and 'Gloomy' seems to fit.") Aang was relating the tale of their run-in with Jeong Jeong to Iroh, who was upset that the once-great Jeong Jeong was a fugitive.
"Then again," he added, "so am I. But from what you've told me, he's crazier than me."
"Not possible, Uncle," Zuko muttered. "I highly doubt that Jeong Jeong would buy teapots when they aren't important."
"Tea, my dear nephew, is always important," Iroh replied, getting up. "It's still light enough to practice Firebending, young Avatar. Come with me." Aang got up and followed Iroh out. Sokka, Te Lee, and Toph followed, eager to see how Iroh would Aang constantly unbalanced. Katara smiled.
"Want to watch?" she asked, nodding after them. Zuko thought about it, then nodded.
"I want to see if the way Uncle Iroh teaches Firebending is really as humorous as Azula says it was," he remarked dryly, standing. Katara giggled and followed Zuko.
"Stick a cup of water on his head," Sokka's voice was suggesting.
"Tightrope-walking does wonders for a human's balance," Ty Lee said from experience.
"Balancing a cup of hot tea is what I had to do during my poise practice," Toph said bitterly.
"And waste perfectly good tea? Miss Toph, think about who you're suggesting this to," laughed Iroh. Zuko looked at Katara, who frowned and continued.
Everyone was waiting around, trying to figure out how to get Aang to balance. "Uncle, what did you have me do when I had trouble staying balanced?" Zuko asked.
"That's just it, Zuko. You weren't half as unbalanced as Avatar Aang here. You could stay still for more than five minutes without getting bored or falling over on me." At that, Iroh glanced at Aang, who smiled sheepishly.
"Sokka, remember that I never sat straight back home?" Katara said suddenly. Sokka nodded. "What did Mom and Gran-Gran use to get me to stay perfectly straight and still?"
Sokka's eyes lit up. He ran off to get "it", whatever "it" was. A few minutes later, he returned with a box of broken porcelain, the tea set Lakai had given them broken. (One word: Appa.) "Put this on his head. If it drops, he'll step on the porcelain. Of course, Mom and Gran-Gran used sharp icicles with Katara, but this will work too."
Aang grimaced at the thought of porcelain. Katara nodded. "It hurts if you drop it, but it'll teach you to stay still for a long time. Trust me, I know." She winced and rubbed one foot on her thigh. "If you cut yourself, I'll heal it."
"Thanks." Aang sighed and turned to Iroh. "I'm ready." Iroh nodded and put the box on Aang's head.
"Stay like that for fifteen minutes. Given your, ah, hyper-activity, I think that's a good goal." Aang nearly nodded, but remembered the box just in time. The others decided to see who could get Aang to move first, but Zuko left, Katara not far behind.
"Sokka did that for hours, whenever I had to sit like that," Katara said. "I know how hard it is to do, so I don't find it fun to annoy whoever's doing it."
"Back in the Fire Nation, a stiff board was tied to the back of whoever couldn't sit straight. My cousin Lu Ten had to use one growing up, according to my uncle, and Azula still uses one, for posterity, she says," Zuko explained, opening the door to the shared room.
"Hmm. No wonder she's so grumpy," joked Katara. Zuko snorted and lit a fire in the grate. Katara nodded appreciatively and finished unpacking her belongings. (Distractions had prevented her from finishing.) She dug out the blankets and tossed them on the bed. "It's going to feel soooo good sleeping on an actual bed!" she said dreamily.
Zuko nodded in agreement. Especially since I'm sharing it with you, he thought. He began to stare absently at nothing, just in Katara's general direction. Katara noticed and waved a tan hand in front of Zuko's face.
"Hello? Katara to Zuko. Are you still there?" Zuko blinked in surprise. "You were staring at me."
"Oh, no. Not at you, just in your general direction. I was…thinking," Zuko said, sitting down on the bed.
"About what?" Katara joined him, pulling a blanket around her bare shoulders, her parka set aside.
"…Nothing important," replied the former prince. Stretching and rubbing her eyes, Katara laid down on the bed, close to the wall.
"If you're thinking about it, then it's important to you. So what was it?"
Zuko was not about to tell her that his thoughts (as they had been most of the day) were about her and the kiss they had shared upon arrival. Instead, he shrugged, removing the cloak he had kept on and following Katara's lead.
"You were thinking about this morning, weren't you?" Katara teased, rolling over to look at him. "I still don't know why you kissed me."
"Usually when someone kisses someone else, it means they feel a certain amount of affection towards that someone," Zuko explained.
"I know that!" she exclaimed. "I just didn't think you had any sort of feelings for me." She curled up in a small ball. Zuko reached out and brought her closer to him.
"You grow on people," he whispered. Katara giggled and nestled further into Zuko's arms. Silently, they fell asleep like that.
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Five more days until SotFN! (hands out cookies)